Journeys with Autism

Hi all,

I’ve decided to launch a new website for my photography and other art projects. The site is called Sojourning in the Visual World, and you can find it at www.sojournerartist.com. Enjoy!

© 2010 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

A couple of weeks ago, I began reading an incredible book called The Cosmic Serpent: DNA and the Origins of Knowledge by Jeremy Narby. I won’t go into detail about the content of the book; suffice it to say that the author comes to his conclusions by looking at visual forms, and that he explains his findings by combining text with art from a wide array of indigenous cultures, ancient and modern. Both the form and the content of the book are so engaging to my visual sense that my associative mind has been running free and making connections between the author’s observations and a variety of ancient Jewish motifs and ideas.

In the course of reading the book, I’ve learned that I think in visuals far more than I’d realized. Sometimes, the visuals are clear pictures, and sometimes, they consist of outlines, textures, or colors that represent ideas and feelings. Because I’ve never been any good at representational art, I’ve never considered myself a visual thinker, but it’s clear now that I am most comfortable when I’m thinking visually and associatively, rather than verbally and linearly. I’m coming to this realization rather late, I think, because I grew up in two excessively verbal and vocal cultures—American culture and Jewish culture—and I learned to navigate so well in words that I couldn’t see the process behind the words until now.

As you’ve probably noticed, I’ve been writing about one post a week. I still love writing, but I’ve found that I need to balance my identity as a writer with living in the world of the visual. So, I’ve been immersing myself in a number of art projects and finding out just how much I love color, shapes (especially helixes), and the process of putting something together that wasn’t there before. In this post, I want to share what I’ve been doing—both over the course of the last year and at the present time.

I love making wind chimes, and in the spring, I made two wind chimes from parts that I “borrowed” from an old plastic xylophone.  (The plastic part of the xylophone became a lobelia planter for the garden.) Here are the wind chimes, one made from warm colors…

 











…and the other made from cool colors:

 











More recently, I’ve made two pieces of art from the contents of an old, broken digital camera and printer dock, along with some springs and beads I picked up at the thrift store:

 











I’ve also been delving into sewing and quilting. First, I created a new backpack from the remains of a skirt I made last year. I love the deep blue, teal, and purple of the Guatemalan fabric, and I fashioned the backpack so that the pull straps close the top of the pack when you put it on:

Then, I started working on a quilted wall hanging made of fabric from clothing and other items that were wearing out. While I was in the process of cutting the material, I decided to make a potholder from the scraps. It’s unusual that I make anything unplanned and asymmetrical, but I had a good time patching the potholder together and finding out what would happen. I like the result very much:

I still need to sew the backing onto the wall hanging. When it’s done, I’ll post a photo of it.

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

I’ve been struggling in my ASL class, and Michelle’s comment about how visual input can affect auditory processing gave me some insight as to why. While my last post was about my auditory sensitivities overwhelming my visual sense, this post is about what happens when most of the stimuli are visual.

First things first, though: My ASL class, as it turns out, is not as quiet as I thought it would be. While the course syllabus says that there is no talking upon entering the classroom, people are still talking before class. When I asked the teacher for clarification, she said that she doesn’t feel she can ask people not to talk when they don’t know enough ASL to otherwise communicate. I was hoping that they could just be quiet and have the experience of how it feels to have to adapt, but alas, another of my great ideas is just…well, another of my great ideas. Anyway, with my earplugs and headset on, I can still hear people’s voices. I can’t hear words, but I can hear what sounds like undifferentiated noise, and it wears me out before the class even starts. Were I to show up right at the beginning of class, however, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. The teacher jokes around a lot, so there’s a lot of laughter, and it’s quite distracting. Most of the time, I feel exactly as I do in the rest of the world: I wonder why everyone else is making noise when I’m trying so hard to concentrate.

But the problem isn’t just sound. It’s the fact that being in a room full of people is very disorienting. Even if the room were silent for two hours, I’d have all the visuals of people moving around, using their hands, gesturing in nonverbal ways, expressing things with their faces, and thereby distracting the living hell out of me. In the class, I have to focus very hard just to communicate and respond to the simplest signs in the language—signs that I can easily use and understand when I’m watching my ASL DVD, or showing Bob or Ashlynne what I’m learning. I need more structure, more quiet, and fewer people in order to learn and to use what I’m learning.

Unfortunately, the class feels very unstructured and chaotic to me. The description says that we’re supposed to be learning Units 1 through 6 of the book we got, but we’re already three classes into a 12-week course and we’re not even all the way through Unit 1. When I asked the teacher about the homework after the second day of class, she said that she doesn’t give homework, and that we should just study the material in the book on our own. Then, when I asked whether we could use signs in class that we’ve learned from the book, she said no, because not everyone will have learned the same signs. She only wants us to use the signs that she’s taught us in the class so that we can all learn them together. 

I understand what she’s trying to accomplish, but my brain doesn’t work that way. I have to learn things outside of class in order to really understand how to do them; I can’t just pick them up from watching her once a week and remember them when I get home. There is far too much in my visual field for me to be able to discern what I’m supposed to remember. And of course, once I get back to class, I can’t remember what signs she’s taught and what signs I’ve learned from the book.

And then there’s my moderate dyspraxia. I have a lot of trouble watching, imitating, and sequencing moving visuals, and ASL is one long series of complex visuals. While it’s a beautiful language, and I love learning it, I’m also finding it very challenging. When visuals are static, I can focus on them to my heart’s content and see all kinds of patterns and colors. When visuals are moving, it’s very difficult. I can get there, but it takes time and work. I’m willing to put in the time and work, but I need a different learning environment. The present one isn’t working for me.

I finally understand why Aspie kids need IEPs and one-on-one aides. I need educational supports at 51 that just aren’t there in a regular classroom. I’ve emailed my contact at the school about finding some other way to learn and practice ASL. Perhaps someone would be willing to tutor me? I don’t know. Wish me luck!

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

I’ve been wondering whether there is a connection between my auditory oversensitivity and my inability to see nonverbal cues. I rely on my visual sense a great deal, and I experience the visual world with great intensity, so being unable to see nonverbals that are (apparently) right in front of me is very puzzling. It’s as though some obstacle were in the way.

I have read posts by other Aspies who say that they can see a person’s nonverbal signals all at once, but that they can’t understand the signals until later. These folks can replay interactions in their minds in order to view the nonverbals individually and interpret them. I envy Aspies who have this ability. When I’m interacting with a person, I don’t see any nonverbal signals of which I’m aware, so understanding these signals later is out of the question.

In last week’s ASL class, I began to get a hint of what might be the source of the problem. I was blocking out sound almost entirely, so I could not make out any words for the entire two hours. Because people were allowed to speak in the first two classes, some of them were taking the opportunity to ask a lot of questions. I couldn’t hear the questions, but my virtual deafness allowed me to observe people without any auditory distraction. All at once, I noticed that I was watching how one of my classmates used her hands and her facial muscles when asking a question. The inclination to watch felt intuitive, but my interpretation was on a wholly conscious level. I thought, “She’s moving her hands in such a way as to appear authoritative about what she’s saying. Her face gives me the feeling that she takes the subject matter of the question very seriously.”

I have no idea whether my interpretation was correct, but based on my previous interaction with the person, it was (at the very least) a good guess.

So, I got to thinking: Have I failed to see nonverbal signals all my life because I’ve been so distracted and overwhelmed by sound? As compelling as the visual world is to me, the auditory world commands my attention. Whether I’m listening to someone use a hammer, whisper in a movie theatre, or talk in a large group, my response is always the same: I can’t help but hear it, and I can’t help but be overstimulated and overtaken by it. It’s entirely possible that I’m not interpreting the nonverbals because my ears have been using up too much of my attention. Besides, because I’m always a click or two behind in a conversation, I’m spending so much time parsing the words that I haven’t got time for the nonverbals. And once I parse the words, the nonverbals that went along with them are already gone.

It’s also possible that my visual and auditory systems function in analogous ways. Just as I can hear everything very clearly, but can’t prioritize, filter, or interpret competing sounds, so I might also be seeing all the nonverbal signals very clearly, but can’t parse, separate, or interpret what’s right in front of me. When I walk into a large, noisy social gathering, I hear very little except pure, undifferentiated sound, and I overload immediately. Perhaps each person has the same effect on me visually: all the nonverbal signals get piled on top of one another until I see nothing except undifferentiated gestures and facial expressions whose cumulative impact is quite pronounced. After all, a face-to-face conversation is an extremely intense experience for me. It’s unusual that I can talk with anyone except a close family member without becoming overwhelmed. Perhaps I avert my eyes because I’m actually overloading on nonverbals.

If taking in undifferentiated sound has an impact, taking in undifferentiated nonverbals must have an impact as well. With sound, the result is auditory overload; with nonverbals, it seems to be empathic overload. Although I can’t parse the nonverbals, I have a very powerful experience of almost every person with whom I come into contact. I can feel the person’s mood and emotion. It’s a wonderful ability to have in a scary situation, but it’s close to disabling when I’m just trying to go grocery shopping.

Some people would call this kind of intuition a sixth sense, but I don’t believe that I have a sixth sense. I seem to have exquisitely acute senses that bring me information in ways that I don’t always consciously understand.

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

Although spring officially started in March, here in Vermont it’s only arrived in the past couple of weeks. It’s been a lot of fun to see what’s appearing in our gardens:

I’ve planted another garden to the left of the one in the picture, but it’s not quite finished yet.

When I’m not digging up our entire lawn and planting things, I sometimes turn my attention to art. Here is a project that I just finished: a shadow box!

 
This project was so much fun. I worked on it when my mind was too full of words and I needed a different kind of concentration.

I bought the shadow box years ago, when my daughter was small, and it had been sitting in the attic unused. So, I decided to create “The House of the Worry Dolls.” The dolls are kind enough to hold many of my worries. At least, that’s what it says on the little piece of paper that came with them. If you look carefully, you can see a doll in each of seven rooms. (One of the dolls is in a tiny coffee mug.)

Each room gets its own hanging mobile or lamp. The origami crane at the top of the house came courtesy of my daughter; years ago, when we were homeschooling in a cafe, she made the crane out of a used teabag packet. The thermostat is from our old heating system, the two cats used to be earrings, and I found the orange Matchbox car out in the garden when I was digging up the grass.

And finally, here are some recent photos of my daughter Ashlynne. As you can see, she jumps for joy at the beginning of spring…

She hasn’t forgotten her powerful karate kicks…

 
And she has a style all her own!

Occasionally, she will even sit on a couch in the middle of the street:

Why? Because she’s resting. She’s been working hard. At what, you ask? At carrying the couch several blocks with her friend, of course! A neighbor had put the couch outside to be taken away for free, and Ash and her friend decided to carry it home. When they showed up with it, I told them to just leave it on the porch, and Bob and I would help them carry it up the stairs to Ash’s room. But they were on a roll. They brought the couch all the way upstairs as well.

Girl power!

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

Last week, my OT gave me some written information explaining how neuro-typical people process sound and why Therapeutic Listening might be helpful to people with sensory processing issues. One of the articles, A Brief Introduction to Therapeutic Listening, Vital Links 2006, was especially helpful. I’ll do my best to summarize the information from that article and to share my responses. 

Listening: It’s Not Easy
Reading about how neuro-typical people take in and interpret sound gave me a profound sense of the difficulties that Aspies have with auditory stimuli.

Both consciously and unconsciously, human beings constantly monitor the auditory environment. It’s a basic survival skill. For a neuro-typical person, the process of locating and selecting which sounds merit investigation is largely unconscious. Therefore, other pathways in the brain are free to perform other functions. On a conscious level, a neuro-typical person takes the auditory information the brain has unconsciously selected, listens to it, makes choices about which sounds have priority, and interprets these sounds accordingly.

This basic neuro-typical process feels quite foreign to me. I’m not sure how much unconscious locating and selecting I do with sound. Very little, it seems. No wonder I get so tired! Some of the other pathways in my brain can’t attend to other things because my unconscious doesn’t give them a break. Almost all my processing is conscious. It feels like the only unconscious responses I give to sound are to defend against it or to become very unnerved by it.

For me, all sounds come in at a very similar volume (and thus seem to have a similar level of importance), and when I attempt to locate sound, I often look in the wrong place. For instance, this morning, two guys were on our roof fixing our chimney, and they were having a conversation. I was outside, on the other side of the house, and I could hear some of the words. For about a half hour, I was sure that the sound was coming from the apartment on my right, when it was actually coming from my house on my left!

As for consciously attending to some sounds, but not to others—under most circumstances, I can’t. I just give my attention to all of them. Sometimes, when I listen to many people talking at once, I hear a jumble of words in which I can glean different phrases, but I can’t put the meanings together. At other times, the sound of many people talking just comes into my brain as undifferentiated noise.

I can prioritize and select sounds only in very structured environments. The purpose and the organization of the group have to be clear. For example, at my karate dojo, I gave most of my attention to my sensei, since she was my teacher and kept the group focused. In well-facilitated business meetings, with clear agendas, I was able set priorities about where to put my attention. At the store where I work, I was once able to attend to one conversation rather than another, but only because the space was very big and otherwise quiet.

Even in the most structured situation, however, I find that listening and keeping up with the flow of the conversation is very hard work.

How Our Ears Work: The Cochlear and Vestibular Systems
Remember in high school, when we learned about the inner ear? I remember the cochlea, which looks like a snail shell and controls hearing. But there is more to the story. The inner ear also consists of three semicircular canals, plus the utricle and the saccule, all of which constitute the vestibular system—the system that controls movement, balance, and spatial orientation. Not surprisingly, the cochlear and vestibular systems are intimately connected. Our bodies use the same (amazingly tiny) osseous labyrinth for both systems. In fact, the cochlear and vestibular systems use the same cranial nerve for sending information to the brain, and they exchange information all along their neurological pathways.

During my sensory assessment, it became clear that in addition to my difficulties filtering auditory input, I have deficits in each facet of my vestibular system: movement, balance, and spatial orientation. I have moderate dyspraxia when performing tasks that involve balance and moving my body through space. For instance, I had a lot of difficulty learning different forms in karate. I would have to draw them out visually and then memorize the pattern. My sensei would keep urging me to just feel each form in my body, but it was very difficult. Sometimes, she would even have us do katas with our eyes closed, just to help us feel the forms inside us. Unfortunately, these exercises generally resulted in my becoming frustrated and rooted to the floor. It was either that or become completely dizzy and fall down.

As for spatial orientation…What spatial orientation? If you need directions to anywhere in the world, just send me an email. If I tell you to go left, you should go right. If I tell you to head due east (wherever that is), you should head due west. It works like a charm (except for those random, statistically insignificant moments in which I am correct).

In the final analysis, the cochlear system, which allows us to hear, is also involved with spatial orientation. Hearing allows us to become oriented to the world around us, while the vestibular system gives us information about where we are on the ground. Since both hearing and spatial orientation are basic survival skills, it should come as no surprise that those of us with auditory and vestibular deficits feel pretty anxious and disoriented. A lot.

Isn’t it a relief to know that these feelings have their origins in our neurology, rather than in some deep, dark, psychological abyss? It is for me.

How Does Therapeutic Listening Work?
Since I have problems with my auditory and vestibular systems, I was very happy to learn that Therapeutic Listening works by engaging both.

At the moment, I am listening to the “modulated” CDs. I loved the Mozart for Modulation CD, and I’m currently working with a modulated Vivaldi CD. The people who create these CDs pass the music through a filter. Sometimes the higher frequencies are allowed to come through; sometimes the lower frequencies are allowed to come through. This type of modulation exercises both the auditory and vestibular portions of the inner ear. It also works the middle ear muscles that help control our ability to attend to our auditory environment and to organize sensory data. In general, these benefits should result in better overall sensory processing and self-modulation.

At present, I’m listening to my CD for 20-30 minutes, twice a day. I’ll do so for a minimum of 10-12 weeks. Some people continue the therapy for six months or more, and others make the therapy an ongoing part of their sensory diet. I hope that the therapy is effective for me, and that I’ll be able to include it in my sensory diet. I thrive on consistency, and besides, I really love the music.

Ultimately, the purposes of Therapeutic Listening are to help me use more than one sense at a time, to reduce auditory overload, and to improve the deficits in my vestibular system. To get used to multitasking, I engage in movement while listening to the CD. Generally, while I listen, I wash dishes, fold laundry, do my artwork, or work in the garden. When I’m not listening to the CD, I do activities that engage both my auditory system (such as singing) and my vestibular system (such as rocking, walking, or bicycling).

Walking, biking, and gardening also provide joint compression and reduce stress. I’ve even noticed myself toe-walking lately. Because Therapeutic Listening is hard work for my body, it’s important to have these kind of grounding activities.

Is There a Down Side to Therapeutic Listening?
At the moment, for me, there seems to be one. I’ve been getting a lot of migraines. Fortunately, I’ve figured out why. I’m resisting using more than one sense at a time. When I’m listening to the CD and making my lunch, the combination annoys me.

Okay, it doesn’t just annoy me. It makes me irritable. Being an Aspie, I’m just not wired to multitask. Using one sense at a time allows me to focus on a project and to enjoy the process. I get so much accomplished that way. I love it. And I’m beginning to love that part of myself that keeps working, and working, and won’t let go until something beautiful comes out of it.

But I also want to be in the world. Being at home gives me much needed solitude and respite, but I lose perspective when I’m alone for too many days on end. Besides, I find people very interesting, and I like them, and I like helping them. And then, of course, I would also like to re-engage basic survival skills, like buying my food at the grocery store, without it wiping me out for the rest of the day.

To be able to do these things, I have to learn to use more than one sense at a time. So, instead of long, measured strides, I’m taking baby steps. Baby steps! At my age. With my education. And my work experience. And my talents. And all those other things I’ve used to mask my utter confusion in life.

Baby steps. Okay. I’ll try it.

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

My sweater, that is. My very first sweater!

I learned so much from working on this sweater. I figured out how to shape a collar, how to block the pieces, how to knit the shoulders together, and how to seam. I had planned to get help from the nice lady at the yarn store, but then I decided it would be more fun (and a better learning experience) to do everything myself. Typical Aspie, I know, but what can I do?

It’s actually chilly enough tonight for me to wear it. Our mornings have been below freezing lately, so I might get a little more wear out of it before spring begins in earnest. I’d much rather have the spring start already, but since it’s taking its time, the sweater is a nice consolation prize.

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

With Passover starting on Wednesday night, I’m beginning to feel stressed. I still have a fair amount of preparation to do, but mainly, I’m feeling apprehensive about having guests. It’s the first time we’ve hosted anything at our house since my diagnosis. Nearly everyone coming to our seder knows that I’m an Aspie, so I feel comfortable with the idea of taking breaks when I need them. But I’m also feeling sad, remembering past years, when I worked so hard to fit in and to try to make everything “perfect.” It’s good to be relieved of that burden, but there’s a sadness that comes with letting it go as well.

Since I’m going to need some time to rest and prepare, I probably won’t be able to post for several days. In the meantime, I thought I’d put up some photos of my latest art work.

I’ve continued to fuss with the crown I made a few weeks ago. I’m going to consider it finished now. I’ve added some more beads, a copper bell, and a lapis pendant that makes the bell ring:

I also decided to add several wind chimes to the spoon mobile, all of which have their own string of beads. Now the mobile makes a beautiful sound and has even more sparkling color than before:

Finally, I made a celestial mobile with smaller wind chimes. I love any kind of celestial object, so I found as many as I could and put them together:

Happy Passover, Happy Easter, Happy Spring to all!

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

The word perseveration has been coming into my mind with great frequency these days. It’s a cool word, you know? The verb form, perseverate, sounds like some weird techno-version of persevere, except that the -ate tacked onto the end makes it sound like something you do with a Cuisinart.

Anyway, I became curious as to what the authorities think perseveration means, so I went to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary and looked it up. Check out the definition and etymology:

Main Entry: per·sev·er·a·tion
Pronunciation: \pər-ˌse-və-ˈrā-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Latin perseveration-, perseveratio, from perseverare
Date: 1910
Definition: continuation of something (as repetition of a word) usually to an exceptional degree or beyond a desired point
— per·sev·er·ate \-ˈse-və-ˌrāt\ intransitive verb
— per·sev·er·a·tive \-ˌrā-tiv\ adjective

I have read that people on the spectrum perseverate about things large and small, and I’m no exception. I’ve had therapists, boyfriends, schoolmates, and family all tell me that I think about things for far too long and that I need to give things a rest. Of course, it’s never seemed like too long to me. Having all those thoughts constantly spinning in my brain, like a hamster on a wheel, has always felt perfectly normal to me. But then again, in the words of a Paul Simon song, “When something’s wrong, I’m always the first to admit it, and always the last to know.”

Not that anything is wrong with perseverating, unless you’re driving the other people in your house nuts with it. That’s where continuing a process “beyond a desired point” gets people tense. Lately, I’ve been watching myself perseverate, and for me, it’s been great fun. My husband doesn’t much mind either, except when I say, “I’ll be right there to watch the movie,” and an hour later, I’m still working on whatever-it-is that really, truly, I-mean-it was only supposed to take a few more minutes to finish.

My main warning sign that I’m about to go on a roll comes very early in the game. It usually starts with a “nudge-nudge, wink-wink” of denial, as in, “I’ve got this great idea for a new mobile, and I’m just going to wind the beads around one spoon before coming downstairs and finishing breakfast.” Yeah, right. Several hours later, I’m still working on the mobile and haven’t had anything to eat or drink at all.

Now, I know better than to start when I have a commitment outside my house in the early afternoon. I’ve set up my schedule to start my volunteer work at 1 pm, which means that I need to eat, drink water, work out, drink more water, shower, dress, and generally take care of myself before going out into the world. If it’s a week that my daughter is with me, I can stave off the perseveration even without an outside commitment, because her schedule gives me a schedule, and thus a break from my own extremely focused process.

But if my daughter is at her father’s house, my husband is visiting his dad, and I’m not working outside my house, I’ve got the green light to go. I get so absolutely lost in whatever I’m doing that I couldn’t tell you whether five minutes have passed or five hours.

Lately, when I have time to myself, I’ve been perseverating with my art. I love trying things out, and seeing how they look, and taking things apart when they don’t work, and trying something new, and seeing how to do a task that’s been stumping me. I love the feeling of the beads in my hands. I love wrapping the wires to get them to coil just right. I even love the nicks and the callouses I’m getting on my fingers. I love the whole blessed thing.

When I’m alone and can let the art take me where it wants me to go, I find that perseverating doesn’t happen “beyond a desired point,” because there is no desired point. At those times, it’s the “continuation of something…to an exceptional degree.” It’s better than persevering. It’s persevering by letting go and letting the process take me where it will. It’s persevering with inspiration.

However, nothing exists in isolation from its opposite. So while perseverating on my art feels wonderful, having to stop for any reason is very, very difficult. Sometimes, it feels painful. Perseverating is physical, like a powerful force that doesn’t want to stop. Something has to interpose itself between me and the object of my perseveration. Sometimes, an external commitment, like a doctor’s appointment, will do it. At other times, it’s my internal moral compass telling me that I can’t keep my family waiting endlessly for dinner or for a movie.

There are forces equal to perseveration, and being an adult, I can choose to stop and shift my attention. I love spending time with my husband and daughter. I know that nothing lasts forever, that my daughter will soon be grown, that my husband and I are getting older, and that I’d better pay attention now, because one day, everything will be changed. Growing older provides perspective, and I am glad of that.

It’s the transition from one activity to another that is difficult for me. I even have difficulty saying good-bye to the day and going to sleep, no matter how tired I am. It’s my Aspie wiring. I can talk my way around it and adjust my life around it, but I can’t ever change it.

And why would I want to? As difficult as it is, it makes me who I am. And I’m enjoying who I am, more and more, with every passing day.

© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

Since I last posted about making art from found objects, I’ve completed the crown I was working on, and I made another mobile.

For the crown, I added some color and texture to the four wires on top. I used a couple of bracelets and a beaded necklace, winding them around each portion of the wires. Here’s how the crown looks hanging in the window:

Yesterday, I made a new mobile from some pieces I’d picked up at the thrift store. We have a “World-Famous 25-Cent Shelf,” on which you can find all manner of miscellaneous items for a quarter apiece. Here’s how the mobile looks:

Today at work, I picked up some more items from the 25-cent shelf, mostly odd and interesting pieces of metal that I can use for the frames of my art work. Then, to my heart’s delight, I found out about a box of metal items in the sorting room. All the metal was going out for salvage, and I could take anything I wanted, for free. I ended up with several white wire hangers (that I can take apart and mold for wiring), a whisk, some small spoons, and a bottle opener. They will all get turned into art, eventually.

I’m really looking forward to tag sale season. Around here, after tag sales, people leave all the stuff that didn’t get sold in boxes by the sidewalk. There will be more free stuff to salvage and use. My basic rule for the items that make up my art work is that they be used (rather than new), and that they be free, or cost a dollar or less. It’s extraordinary what you can find.
© 2009 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg