Jeffrey and Jaime Rugh
Wild Grid with Flowers
Edition of 50. Five artist proofs.
Five color silk screen print on white paper 12 1/2 x 19 inches
We started the Rugh Family Workshop for our children. Collaborating as artists with family, old friends and new friends, the workshop started making posters to promote awareness, support and compassion for individuals, families, and communities living with Autism Spectrum Disorders. The posters vary widely in range, focus and design as does the spectrum itself.
Autistic individuals are often classified with deficits in social interaction, communication and repetitive behaviors .Because one may experience only one or two of these symptoms with varying intensity or the specific behaviors may vary from person to person; Autism is a spectrum disorder. As diagnosis is as high as 1 in every 91 children, Autism cannot be ignored. We hope these posters inspire people to do their own research and become advocates for the diverse spectrum within the autistic community.
Each family and community embrace and respond to Autism in a variety of ways. We imagine our posters will best function in homes, libraries, schools and community centers. We honor and promote full acceptance of these individuals as neurological difference need not be seen as a defect but a part of human experience.
A donation will be made from each sale to GRASP, an educational and advocacy organization serving individuals on the autism spectrum.
About the poster:
Our artist friend Polly Apfelbaum designed Wild Grid with Flowers for us. Inspired by the following poem by autistic poet Tito Mukhopadhyay and British WWII codebreaker Alan Turing, also autistic, Polly encoded this poem into her design. "When you are trying to think blue And end up thinking black You can be sure to be frustrated Time and again it happens to me And I get quite helpless Otherwise why should I get up and spin myself Spinning my body Brings some sort of harmony to my thoughts So that I can centrifuge away all the black thoughts I realise that the faster I spin The faster I drive away the black When I am sure that even the last speck of black Has gone away from me Then I spin back in the opposite direction And pull the blue thoughts into myself It depends on how much blue I want If I want more blue I have to spin faster Otherwise not so fast It's just like being a fan The trouble is when I stop spinning My body scatters And it's so difficult to collect it together again"