Angela’s Thoughts on Neurodiversity, Animation and Her Experience Working on #ExDxFilms

Angela Weddle, one of the talented artists who has been working with us to produce our 3 Films on autism, diagnosis, neurodiversity and art, shares with us her thoughts and experiences.

Working on the films with the University of Exeter has been a wonderful and engaging experience. The process of learning animation by doing it, essentially jumping right in, may seem overwhelming to some, but as an artist with autism and other neurodiverse conditions, it is helpful as it circumvents overthinking and some executive functioning issues that can arise with too much planning.

It throws one’s brain into gear and bypasses some of those problems. And having guidance to handle any situations that do arise during the process made it very manageable.

It is also an exciting time to use technology. As an artist who does both traditional and digital art, it is still amazing that I possess the technology for making a movie, for animating something, that I can hold in my hand.

That even as a beginner in this medium, I can continue to learn it at my own pace and watch it evolve, and bring it into the creative process almost as naturally as one would a pencil. It has been a great opportunity to not only tell my story, and those of others, but to expand my own artistic practice and see new possibilities for communication, expression, and art making.

An example of Angela’s art work. This piece is entitled ‘Industrial Storm’.

Almost ready to launch our films!

Over the last 3 years we have been working with neurodivergent artists teaching them the craft of animation. Just in the past year, four artists have been working with us more closely to produce three short films about the experiences of autistic people. These artists are: Eddie Callis from Cornwall, James Frye from Washington State, J A Tan from Vancouver and Angela Weddle from Texas.

All of them produce paintings that they sell through the Art of Autism. These artists wanted to find out even more about animated film making-and our partners Calling the Shots have been visiting them and helping them to produce some visual footage. You’ll be able to see the results later this year when we launch the Films on this Blog. In the meantime here are three short trailers!

ExDx Films and a Logic Model

We are presently working on three short films that aim to capture the voices of autistic adults giving their views on subjects such as the diagnosis and treatment of autism and neurodiversity and also feature artwork by autistic artists.  As we move through the creation and development of these films we are using a Logic Model to evaluate the effectiveness of our work. If you would like to take a look at our Logic Model please click the link.  The Model will be frequently updated as we progress with the project, hopefully capturing a reflexive approach.

Logic Model