NOTE: This piece has been updated. An activist better versed than I in the history of art in Australia has graciously corrected me on several things I believed from my reading were true. In fact they are not merely false, but racist. I am profoundly sorry. I shall try to do better at fact checking my reading.

We all, I imagine, by  a certain point in our lives, want things that we don’t expect to ever have. We’re not upset about it. We just know that if we were richer, and all the ills of the world were addressed so there wasn’t a better use for our wealth….  Or maybe we never would. I want a superyacht. But I want a sustainable humanity in a not-totally-postapocalyptic world more so I’d never buy one even if one were affordable and accessible and I could also afford fair wages for the crew, plus maintenance.

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I have certainly experienced being moved by the visual arts, though it’s not my strength.

Dot paintings by Aboriginal artists is as far back as I remember being transfixed by art.

As a slightly more sheltered youth, I looked through my tears at Picasso’s Guernica until I thought I saw the horror as well as I could.

Riva Lehrer’s portrait of Eli Clare will probably never not stun me (as guilty as I feel about that, because the Chicago Disability Culture scene has been super clear that I don’t even qualify for ADA-level access to events, and if it’s made by people with I/DD it’s not disability culture, it’s crafts the A*c (SABE has requested the R be removed from the name, and I support them) may choose to display because that’s for the [slur redacted]s. I don’t even know if there’s proportional representation that reflects Chicago’s people with motor but not cognitive impairments in Chicago disability. I mean, “no” is the odds-on favourite, but sometimes I’m wrong and I hope I am).

I’m pretty sure I’ll have the same experience with Rob Stone ‘s Bird of Paradise (except no guilt). I know the fact that I know and admire the subject helps me to see the power of Lehrer’s piece; I still dont know why I react so strongly to that particular instance of Stone’s work but it makes me happy. The artist and his family have gifted me a beautiful tote bag with a print. (I know his mom.)

Stephen Wiltshire and Kambel Smith do beautiful, intricate work, but as I have less uncommitted time now, I’ve spent less time learning to see their power than I had for Guernica. I’m farther into understanding why I react to Wiltshire because I discovered him longer ago, and I think i may need to see the third dimension Smith relies on, not just photos.

The stuff that looks most accurate to what I see in the world is Vincent van Gogh on a good-processing day and Salvador Dalí on a bad-, which probably explains why I find text easier than graphics.

And then there are artists whose work I’ll pretty reliably want to look at. The entire field of Oaxacan sculpture — I’d still have one were it not for the 70 lbs of clumsy, furry, energetic canine destruction I love. Frida Kahlo. I don’t understand Ai Weiwei well enough to get nearly all of it, but I can tell it’s powerful. Banksy is wonderful.

And I know you’re supposed to call it “craft,” not “art,” but some textiles speak to me in a similar way, so in my head it’s art. Currently I’m really into looking at Ghanaian Kente, though clearly I will be exploring what else makes me emotional in the area, and Indonesian Batik has been a long favourite (I first encountered it nearly 50 years ago).

I have just read this discussion of the artist Sliman Mansour’s take on peace and plan to look at his art when I can. On the subject of how to live together I discovered Marc Chagall far earlier and his work too helps me reflect on the news of the world that makes it through the fog to me.

There are others, of course, but also much of art that I don’t understand. I am familiar with the Mona Lisa, for instance. I understand that there is greatness in that image — but to me she just looks like a nice lady. I’m not Jerry Salz (an art critic) over here.

I like the visual arts. They just aren’t my talent. I can make a pretty mean egg carton caterpillar — hey, not to brag, but I attended the fourth (4th) grade at three (3) schools!! — but that’s about as far as I got.

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As a child (before I understood that narrative arcs existed — I still often can’t follow them — so the book so it just seemed like unconnected and somewhat repetitive stories), I read part of Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk (for monololingual English speakers like me — I’ve failed every ASL classes I’ve ever taken and after 6 years of Spanish classes I still was not functional enough to decipher a spoken Cigarillos, por favor (a direct quote from my cousin Alvaro in 1984), though admittedly I gave up on German after only a year, and I have stopped pursuing bilingualism as it seems unlikely I will succeed — the Š sounds like SH, the vej sounds like VAY, and the k sounds like it would in English), the Parrott translation.

I love the character Švejk and I recommend the book, but through the book I discovered the artist Josef Lada, who illustrated it. And Lada’s art is not so taxing on my particular variety of visual processing that I can’t see that I love it fast. As a teen, I had some of his prints in my bedroom.

And then I discovered Alex Lim.

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I was first interested in Lim because he’s autistic like me, same as with Wiltshire and Smith. But, also same as Wiltshire and Smith, Lim’s power as an artist is obvious even to me. And I am drawn to his work — I’ve yet to see a piece that doesn’t stop me in my tracks. I’m reacting in much the same way as I do to Lada.

Maybe the art critics are less impressed. I don’t know. I don’t actually care. I don’t care to look at what is powerful to Jerry Salz; I care to look at what’s powerful to me. (I care for Lim’s sake as an artist that he be taken seriously, just not for mine as a fan.)

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I happened to joke to a friend of mine in Singapore — and the personal friendship is not part of their public life, so I shall call them L today — that they are my only chance of ever having an authentic Lim. I’m not an art collector: I knew I’d never have an authentic Lim. It is often ethical to want things, but less ethical to pursue them, and I have too few resources left to engage in time-consuming hobbies as people live and die in horror.

And I’m in hospital, so I’m not certain, but my roommate appears to have located the package L has sent me with a small painting of Alex Lim’s, and put it somewhere safe. I expect L worries I will be disappointed. The act of friendship alone would have been enough even if the artist had painted something beyond my ability to appreciate. But I’ve seen a photo: this is beautiful.

And it may not arrive pristine, but pristine always seems slightly inhuman to me because I’m more of a patch-it-together-with-duct-tape-and-spit kind of person (in related news, the wheelchair is duct taped back together in a way that might work).

I would be flapping my whole body if I could. I am so excited.

</me acting like I’m cosplaying an art critic LOL>