Debra Chwast - An Unexpected Life: A Mother and Sons Story of Love, Determination, Autism, and Art

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Text 2011 by Debra Chwast

Illustrations 2011 by Seth Chwast

2011 Kip Jacobs

Book design and layout: Christine Heun

All artwork photography courtesy of Fuchs & Kasperek Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4027-8936-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Chwast, Debra.

An unexpected life : speaking through art / Debra Chwast with Seth Chwast.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4027-7403-4 (alk. paper)

1. Chwast, Seth. 2. Chwast, Debra. 3. Autistic children--United States--Biography. 4. Autistic artists--United States--Biography. 5. Autistic children--Education--United States--Case studies. 6. Painting--Study and teaching--United States--Case studies. 7. Art therapy--United States--Case studies. 8. Mother and child--United States--Case studies. I. Chwast, Seth. II. Title.

RJ506.A9C483 2011

616.858820092--dc22

[B]

2010046453

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To my mother, Sandra Louise Hilda Newmark, who loved
family, beauty, fun, music, drama, and art.

To my father, Milton J. Newmark, who always persevered,
never gave up, and enjoyed life to the last minute.

To my son, Seth, who fills me with joy.

I am a graphic designer, illustrator, and painter with two autistic grandsons. My connection with Seth came through our same, though rare, last name, and I realized that we were related. Debra knew my work and thought Id be interested in seeing the work of her son. What I saw amazed mehis work has exuberant color, form, and creative imagination with a range and output on a par with any other working artist.

Debra Chwast is a remarkable woman who credits Seth for her endurance and perseverance. She has had a lot more than a moms drive for success for her child. In this case it is a son with extreme challenges and a mom with total determination for his achieving that success.

Seth is not constrained by a necessity to direct his work. (As an illustrator that is my foremost duty.) He can act on anything that inspires him. The results cover a wide range from turtles, hippocampuses, and horses to abstract work, self-portraits, flowers, and buildings. The work covers the conceptual to the decorative; from impressionism to expressionism to minimalism; from his sense of realism to imaginative fantasy. He indulges in experimentationas the professionals call it to justify narrowly focused work.

Seths genre, called self-taught or outsider art, is recognized by critics, museums, and collectors. The artists come from everywhere but do not have formal training. They have, however, the same or greater urge to creative as learned ones. They operate in a different universe from the rest of us but have a vision that shows us a world that is uniquebut still a part of the human condition.

I dont know if Seth realizes the importance of his body of work. In the end his paintings leave him excited, as he tells us, while the rest of us get caught up in his fascination with the act of creating art.

In their book American Self-Taught, Roger Ricco and Frank Maresca said, Self-taught images constantly remind us that art does not mirror some established reality but instead illuminates experience. Arising from no specific milieu but underlying all the works is the artists drive to testify fully to his or her circumstance.

The creative urge is a mystery. I dont know what part of the brain or nervous system provokes me to make something that has never been seen before. In Seths case, acting on his creative urge was not a conscious method of advancing a career or satisfying an ego. It is for him the way for anyone with a vision the thing they have to do. I look back to paintings and drawings Ive done that were not commissioned. While I am glad they were done (and many were just bad) I have to admire and be curious about the incentive within me that got me to create the work.

Seth is artistic and autistic. The special talent that some of those similarly affected have belong to all of us to admire, absorb and love.

Seymour Chwast

Detail, Rocket Man 2, 2008. Oil on canvas, 30 48 inches.

No parents ever imagine that their child will be autistic. During pregnancy, shadows of worry flit through dreams of a healthy, happy, and whole child but they dissolve quickly in the bright light of day. You dont dwell on what you cant imagine.

I know I never imagined that I would have an autistic son. I never imagined that he would be evaluated for a career in dry mopping at age eighteen. I never imagined that he would start to paint at twenty, and by twenty-three become a successful painter of huge, colorful canvases and be featured on the Today show as an artist. Now, at twenty-eight, he paints daily, has art exhibitions, speaks through his paintings, and lives in a state of bliss. I never imagined any of this for my son, but Ive discovered, after nearly two decades of struggle, that it was my imagination that was lackingnot my sons. Not Seths.

My life before Seth included growing up in Brooklyn, a degree in social work from the University of California at Berkeley, marriage, and living in Manhattan. Life was full and exciting; it seemed as though there was never enough time to do all that my husband and I wanted to do. Living in New York City felt like one wonderful experience after anotherforeign films, plays, and dance performances kept us busy as we discovered all that the city had to offer. After a few years of city life, we moved to Cleveland, Ohio. While my husband pursued his PhD in psychology at Case Western Reserve University, I enrolled in the Gestalt Institute, studied with Masters and Johnson, and began studying medical hypnosis. Meanwhile, our idyllic life continued. We traveled the world: Iceland, Greenland, Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Madeira, Lapland, Scandinavia, and more. The world was ours to explore and we were free to go where our wanderlust took us.