The Best Day of His Life

What a few cups of paint, an empty canvas, and the freedom to let go taught me about autism, art, and a young man named Jimmy

By Mentor, Bates

Editor’s Note: To protect the privacy of the individual featured in this story, “Jimmy” is a pseudonym. Some identifying details have been changed or omitted while preserving the substance of the experience described.

There Are Days You Remember

There are days you remember because something enormous happened.

And then there are days that seemed small while you were living them.

A table. Some canvases. Cups of acrylic paint. Me, standing beside a young man named Jimmy.

Years later, I realized that something enormous had happened after all.

Jimmy is autistic. I had the opportunity to work with him through a program where our relationship developed beyond the formal boundaries of mentor and participant.

What happened between us was not a clinical experiment. It was not a carefully scripted therapeutic session.

It was two people, paint, canvas and an opportunity to create.

Somewhere in that experience, Jimmy found something worth remembering.

He called it:

“The best day of my life.”

That is the story I want to tell.

POUR

Acrylic pouring is a strange kind of art.

You choose the colors. You mix the paint. You decide how much goes into the cup and where you're going to pour it. You can tilt the canvas, manipulate the flow and encourage the paint in one direction or another.

But then physics enters the conversation.

Colors collide.

Some rise through others. Cells appear. Rivers form. Lines divide and reconnect. Something you expected to disappear suddenly becomes the most beautiful part of the painting.

You have control.

And you don't.

For Jimmy, a young man who has spent much of his life trying to understand a world that can be confusing, demanding and unpredictable, there was something remarkable about watching him engage with that process.

There wasn't a correct picture he had to reproduce.

There wasn't a face he had to read.

There wasn't a social cue hiding underneath somebody's words.

There wasn't a test at the end.

There was paint.

There was movement.

There was choice.

And there was Jimmy.

Research into creative arts and autism gives us some language for understanding why experiences involving art may matter. A 2022 scoping review examined creative arts interventions involving autistic children, including drawing, painting, coloring, music and theater. The researchers found evidence of benefits in areas including process skills, social interaction and certain body-function outcomes, while also emphasizing the need for continued research.

That distinction matters. Art should not be presented as a cure for autism, nor should one artistic activity be assumed to work for every autistic person.

But the research does provide reason to take creative experiences seriously as opportunities for participation, expression and engagement.

But research papers weren't sitting at that table with me and Jimmy.

Jimmy was.

And Jimmy gave me the only outcome measure I needed that day.

He said it was the best day of his life.

LOOK AT THE CANVASES (See bottom of article 👇)

Look closely at what came out of that experience.

One painting erupts in red, yellow, blue and green. Another moves through deep blues, gold and red like some undiscovered geological formation. Purple and white fold into one another. Black islands emerge inside oceans of green. Brilliant reds fracture against cream, violet and gold.

Some are violent.

Some are quiet.

Some look like fire.

Others look like water.

There are places where the paint appears almost cellular, as though we are looking through a microscope at something alive.

None of them could have been completely planned.

That is part of their beauty.

Acrylic pouring rewards participation without demanding perfection. The artist makes decisions, but the material participates too.

I learned that you influence without strangling the outcome.

You watch.

You respond.

Sometimes you intervene.

Sometimes you leave the damn thing alone because something beautiful is happening that you never intended.

There is a lesson in that which reaches considerably beyond painting.

Maybe especially when we're talking about autism.

DIFFERENT DOESN'T MEAN EMPTY

Too often, people encounter someone whose brain works differently and immediately begin cataloging deficits.

What can't he do?

What does he struggle with?

What behavior needs to be corrected?

What makes him different from everybody else?

Spend enough time doing that and you can completely overlook the person.

Jimmy doesn't need anyone to manufacture humanity for him.

It was there before any of us arrived.

My responsibility was to find ways of meeting him where he actually was.

Sometimes that meant conversation.

Sometimes it meant patience.

Sometimes it meant fishing.

Sometimes it meant standing beside a canvas and watching liquid color move.

The art didn't “fix” Jimmy.

Jimmy wasn't broken.

And I am careful about calling what happened therapy. I wasn't conducting a clinical intervention. I was mentoring Jimmy and making art with him.

But something happened.

For a while, the expectations surrounding Jimmy became quiet.

He could choose.

He could experiment.

He could watch.

He could make a mistake that wasn't really a mistake because the paint simply became something else.

And at the end there was a physical object saying:

I made this.

That matters.

THE MAN BESIDE THE DIAGNOSIS

The photographs of Jimmy tell another part of the story.

There is the younger kid at home.

There is Jimmy outdoors holding up a fish.

There is the young man he became.

There are photographs of Jimmy and me together during a considerably harder chapter.

Then there are the superhero pictures.

They are easy to smile at.

Not because autism needs another superhero metaphor. Autistic people should not have to possess some extraordinary hidden power to earn the world's respect.

Jimmy doesn't owe anybody extraordinary.

He gets to simply be Jimmy.

But the photographs still mean something to me because I know the young man underneath the costume.

I know some of what it took for Jimmy to keep moving forward.

Sometimes surviving your own story is heroic enough.

WHAT ART CAN DO

The scientific conversation surrounding art and autism continues to develop.

Researchers have examined creative arts activities as possible ways of supporting participation, self-expression, social interaction and other areas of functioning. A 2022 scoping review of creative arts interventions for autistic children reported positive findings across several occupation-based outcomes, including process skills and social interaction. However, the authors also noted the limitations of the available evidence.

That is important because responsible storytelling requires separating what research demonstrates from what an individual experience means.

Jimmy's experience cannot prove that acrylic pouring will benefit every autistic person.

Some may love the colors and movement.

Some may dislike the texture.

Some may find the unpredictability uncomfortable.

Others may have no interest in painting whatsoever.

The lesson isn't:

Give autistic people acrylic pours.

The lesson is much larger.

Find the door.

Find the thing that captures a person's attention.

Find the activity where correction gives way to curiosity.

Find the place where someone who spends much of life being evaluated gets to become the evaluator.

Do I like this color?

Do I want more blue?

Should I tilt the canvas?

Should I leave it alone?

Is it finished?

Those may sound like small decisions.

They are not.

They are acts of autonomy.

JUSTICE4AUTISM

That is part of what #Justice4Autism means to me in this story.

Justice isn't merely accommodating a diagnosis after somebody has struggled.

Justice is recognizing the person before the struggle becomes the only thing anybody sees.

It means asking different questions.

Not simply:

“What is wrong?”

But:

“What reaches him?”

“What gives him peace?”

“What makes him curious?”

“What makes him proud?”

And maybe the most important one:

“What makes him happy?”

Jimmy answered that question for me once.

We poured paint.

We watched colors run across canvas and become things neither of us could have predicted.

And this young man, who had already experienced more difficulty than many people around him probably understood, looked back on that experience and described it in five words that stayed with me:

“The best day of my life.”

Think about that for a moment.

Not the best painting.

Not the best art class.

The best day.

There are accomplishments in life that require considerably more planning, money, work, skill and sacrifice than putting acrylic paint into cups.

Yet sometimes a table, a few colors and another person willing to stand beside you can mean more than all of them.

Because somewhere between pouring the paint and watching it find its own path across the canvas, Jimmy found something too.

Maybe peace.

Maybe freedom.

Maybe accomplishment.

Maybe simply joy.

We don't need to diagnose the moment.

We simply need to recognize it.

Sometimes, when you genuinely care about another human being, witnessing that moment is enough.

#Justice4Autism

See the person. Find the door. Give them room to create.

#Neurodiversity, #AutismAndArt, #HumanConnection, #CreativeFreedom, #InclusionMatters, #SeeThePerson, #FindTheDoor, #NellyVee

References

American Psychiatric Association. (n.d.). What is autism spectrum disorder? https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/autism/what-is-autism-spectrum-disorder

Bernier, A., Ratcliff, K., Hilton, C., Fingerhut, P., & Li, C.-Y. (2022). Art interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder: A scoping review. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 76(5), 7605205030. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36007137/

Schweizer, C., Knorth, E. J., Van Yperen, T. A., & Spreen, M. (2022). Exploring change in children's and art therapists' behavior during “Images of Self,” an art therapy program for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders: A repeated case study design. Children, 9(7), 1036. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35884019/

Amonkar, N., Su, W.-C., Bhat, A., & Srinivasan, S. (2021). Effects of creative movement therapies on social communication, behavioral-affective, sensorimotor, cognitive, and functional participation skills of individuals with autism spectrum disorder: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 12, 722874. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34867515/

Original Canvas Paintings