Tonight on Greentea: Aspie artist making it...MILLIE ! !!

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Waiting for Godot topic

Anticipation. It is making me wait!

and we on page 2 already... she takin' corrupt bit of time...


[meanwhile. camera following some impatient aspies wondering aimlessly throught corridors of broadcast premises; ah there: some went outside for fag, or off to a coffeeshop near Utrecht Central Station...:]

www.wrongplanet.net/postp2031011.html#2031011

theredlightsweremybrain.thebluelightswe ... obertO.iii

Problem is the show hostess is tired and probably going to bed soon...

i can cover from those first questions T of yours, but i bet she gonna be c'rrupt and shy away with all attention, off to the woods & then come back by the time you up again - before she get the first three done

mite be waiz, early nites,
u reddy for all theez eeeeezz?; will need your reedin' wits aboot yoo

Austria???/[email protected]

Humble Apologies, delightful Greentea....i am a stickler for punctuality actually.

Yes....it is the time difference. it is 4.26am here and i have just woken.I also painted a lot int he studio last night so i am up a tad later than usual. I wake around 4 am every morning and ususally paint then, but since entering the world of WP, around 2 or so months ago, my schedule has been altered by my new secondary special interest which involves getting up and obsessivvely reading through the more interesting threads and posts. I will make a coffee and then proceed.

Firstly might i say i am honoured to be Greentea's second guest. I really enjoyed meeting Acacia through the Greentea Interview.

discalimer: i can spell. but i am a fumbling typist. all spelling errors are a consequence of a newfound attempt to REFRAIN from self-correction...


I greW up in Australia - which is of course both country AND continent. I spent my childhood (perennial - up until the age of 36....and still going actually...) in Sydney. I am one of eight children. I grew up in the 60's and was born in 1962. I am the 6th of 8 children to a mother who is most likely undx'ed and has AS. she is an incredible eccentric. Her family nicknmae is "Mission COntrol," and she is obsessed with current affairs, social justice issues and THE WEATHER FORECAST. I suspect we have undiagnosed autism all throughout our family - although i do have a nephew with HFA - so he is also dx'ed.

As i was born in 1962 I am 46. i am getting on in age. but i present like a big kid and went and got a new star tattoo on my forearm the other day - which i am told is a rather adolescent thing to do. i beleive a great many AS people actually live outside of space and time and so the chronology and age thing exists as a mere conveneicne rather than any kind of indicator of development or status. We tend to grow in unusual ways and so our lives are often about depth as opposed to length.

once again, so sorry for the tardy start. we do not all live in AMERICA.....

Last edited by millie on 06 Feb 2009, 3:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Why do people post into a thread like this just taking up page space before the interview is started or even over. Seem very unusual to me that there isn't more structure to the format?

Why do people post into a thread like this just taking up page space before the interview is started or even over. Seem very unusual to me that there isn't more structure to the format?

The audience chatted between them while waiting for the show guest to arrive on stage. I thought it was a nice warm-up, actually...

I need to get a few hours of sleep because I had a tough day today, but please everyone feel free to act as interviewers!

Goodnight greentea.... i will answer in more detail on my home continent.......

So - i live in Australia on the eastern seaboard. I have always livedon the east coast (chihc is where the population of australia conglomerates actually.) we are a nation of coast huggers although the indigenous polulation had it right in learnig to undertand and immerse themselves in the desert interior.

So, Australia is incredibly beautiful. its landscape is rather ancient looking and it has nothing tame abou tit whatsoever. it is my suspicion Acacia would have a field day (pun intended) out here, as the flora is quite unlike anything you see anywhere else. Just magnificent...very rough and jagged with a delicate harshness about it. THE great Australian novelist Patrick WHite wrote some doozy(brilliat in oz slang) passages on the australian bush and our relationship with it. The convict escapees back in the 1800's had an incredible time of it when out in the wilds. If you read first-hand early accounts of explorations, you really get a sense of just how brutal and strange our ladscape is. I wish i could just grab a banksia pod from outside now just to show you .

Right now at 5.08 am in the small town of Murwillumbah where i live the birds are screeching overhead. they sound like prehistoric monsters - our birds - and tehir calls terrified the early settlers.. But they look incredible. any AS birdwatchers out there? i love birds. Lots of parakeets out there this morning in the dawn, a few galas, butcher birds and austrlian magpies, then the honeyeaters will come along later on as they feed on the plants near my studio.

My town of murwillumbah ( i left the city of Sydney 11 years ago) is small and manageable of an AS person.. 18,000 population with only two streets of shops. The surrounding valley is largely cane farmed and some dairy, and the ridges around us are World Heritage listed National Parks -- with the most phenomenal walks and waterfalls and flora and fauna. TUnbeleiveable to have this five minutes away. i pend a lot of time in nature. it is the most resptrative thing for me and i cannot ever imagine having to contend with city life again. ugh. The green activists fought to save the forests around here years ago and they are incredible. MY valley is a volcanic caldera and a very very important place for the indigenous - on the lay lines. Unfortunately most of them were exterminated by the delightful right wing ratbags up until the 1930's - hideous massacre histories all through Australia and where i live it was really bad. terrible racism in some quarters....... I'll talk more about my experiences with indigenous people later on. they know a thing or two. I'd better shoosh before this turns into an autobiograph as opposed to an interview.....

(oops, i believe that must have been a frustrated prospect sponsor
spamming abaited frustration)

(does provide Millie some time...though...
i wonder what prompted her to take off the avatar and show face...
do i remember she created her own avatar,
wonder if she could help me get mine straihterlipped...)

justthinkingoutloud/[email protected]

hello oblio....
I changed my avatar in response to garyww's thrad on avatars actually. I would also have done it earlier and actually tried but failed because i hadn't reduced the jpeg size adequately.
In keeping with this however - and it may well be AS naivety -- i do not hide who I am or really care much about anonymity and the like. What you see is what you get basically. i am also a rather hopeless liar. i cannot see the point in not telling the truth. However, with age i have learned of the necessity to withold information........but i am not even very good at that.

i am what i am.....avatar and all.
oh, and the old avatar was a rather apt visual depiction of how i feel most of the time....

Milling about topic

Do you live alone? Are you able to support yourself through art?

good morning radical aspergian sartresue... ( now i liked sartre's approach to polyamoury actually...even though the press liked to cast Simone de Beauvoir as the poor woman, my personal view is theey were advanced enough to contend with open relationships....)

Ok, so... i live alone in my small room which has a single bed and my childhood teddy bear on it and white cottong sheets and small brass objects on the windowsill and wooden floorboards> it is very sparse and resembles a monastic cell. i have a dressing table with objects on it.

I share a house with my son's father. we separated for the 4th or so time just recently --- He finds my AS really difficult to contend with and i find the need to fit in with a more typical approach to life almost unbearable. So, i am single.

I co-own this house.

FOR the past 5 or so years i made very good money from my art career. I have not been to art school. i am self-taught. I am unorthdodox in my approach. i am in some major commercial galleries in my country. I go to Sydney rarely and i do all my business from home via phone and email. I am fairly reclusive and do not like networking in the art scene. I am respected and highly intelligent and give talks on my main special interest which is art - at the regional gallery here, at visual arts festivals or seminars and occasionally on radio and tv. I have not followed any prescribed or suggested route in relation to my career trajectory.

I am vey individualised in my approach - like most AS people - and i am viewed as eccentric and very unorthodox.

As for the financial side of things..... i do ok for an emerging artist. As i said the past fiveyears were excellent and i was making really good money on my terms. THe past year since the demise of Wall Street has been shocking. I have a thing or to to say about Bush and deregulation and i would love it if the world was decent enough that we could let the market sort itself out...but the reality is that most humans are selfish materially and that means there is scant regard for fellow humanity. and that means we see the kind of stuff happening economically and globally at present and it makes me mad.
Now, i make little money at present....the downturn is phenomenal from a year ago. BUt really, i am not materialistic. I drive a bomb car, i live a very quiet life surrounded by animals, my son and an ex-partner and i make enough to keep painting. that is all that matters to me.

I am much more interested in notions of true creative expressions, uncompromising vision, the life of visionaries and trailblazers, notions of collectivism and respect for each other and animals and the earth and children....these are really the things that matter to me.

I perceive money as fuel. it comes. it goes.
NOw in saying this, i believe my perspective is a luxurious first world one..... i am ok. i have food, clean water, clean air. i do not have leprosy or live in war torn Sierra Leone or somewhere. I can indulge this perspective on-line at 6.10 in teh morning from a small single bed with crisp white cotton sheets and birds feeding on nectar outside. I am doing ok.

I have enough.
As a painter i am also more interested at this stage in developing respect and kudos. that is more important to me than all the money in the world. I reckon cezanne was cool in that way, as was Rembrandt and also Goya - the old grand-daddy of modernsism -who turned his back on the facile world of society painting and got down to the real stuff - painting about humanity. and ofc course, sitll to this day his darker works do not fare so well at auction on the secondary market - which really says it all.....

i just had a couple of works go into a government collection which is good.
i've got a developing reputation and am the real deal. i am not into it for the power and the dosh. it just is not how i operate.
i think i am a perpetual outsider and i very much like it that way.

I also agree wholeheartedly with temple grandin who maintains if we can turn our special interest into a career - we can have a great life. if anything i would like to encourage ounger people on WP to grab onto that idea, grapple with it and walk away with a sense that it is possible to DO something witha special interest that is meaningful personally and socially. i really mean that, with all sincerity. we have a very hard time fitting in. Some of us older AS people have had great difficulty in life. Grab onto your special interest and work hard (not a problem for us with our perseverative tendencies) and just do not let the detractors and the critics stand in your way. i've had my share of them. just ignore it and keep going.....eventually they ave to cop that you are there to stay - as weird as you are.... oh, and teh good thing is, usually at the apex or tope end of any career scene - there are interesting visionaries who know the real deal when they see it. these are the people to wait for. if one puts in the hard work....they will find you. But one must do the work and take the risks....that is where we need some help sometimes to get started.

oh, and as you can see i am a monologuing AS person. no apologies.... it is what i am

A request from the audience: for the sake of clarity to other members of the audience, please post your question in bold script. That makes it easier to follow and scan.

Millie, thank you again for being with us tonight (long night, hehe) and for your lovely, creative answers to the first questions of the evening.

I'm so glad the green movement got the forests to stay ! !! And I'm looking forward to the stories about the aboriginals.

I find myself here wondering...what is it like to have 7 siblings? While growing up and then as an adult?
I understand you've been here on WP for 2 months, is that right?

What's been going on here?