Posted By Janet Lawson, MFT on April 13, 2010

It’s Spring Break! There will be no workshops this week as we all take some time to relax and catch up on our reading, house cleaning, and other fun stuff.

NEWS FLASH: We’ve been invited to present a 45 minute multimedia ‘poster’ session – Supporting ASD Youth in Transition: The Autistry Studios Model – at Michelle Garcia Winner’s Social Thinking Providers Conference in June. She had lots of applicants so we are thrilled to have been asked. The event will be Saturday, June 26th. We’ll send out more info closer to the day.

SPIN UPDATE: The Sunday, April 25th Spin-a-Thon fundraiser for Autistry Studios is just 2 weeks a way. The first hour, 10am – 11am taught by Michael Lopez is now full. There are still bikes, treadmills and ellipticals available in the other classes.

Ian and Michael Lopez

10am: Michael Lopez (FULL)
11am: Duncan Binihakis
12:00: Jen Ogg
1pm: Yasmine Shamsian
2pm: Dan Swearingen

The funds raised will be used in our Opportunity Fund which allows us to offer services on a sliding scale to lower income families.

Friday College Support and Build Stuff with Dan: Corey, Sarah and Ross joined Janet and Nate for a presentation to Pamela Wolfberg’s Autism Spectrum Program. We spoke to 30 graduate students about Autistry Studios and what it’s like to live on the spectrum. It was a great experience for us and for them! And a lot of progress was made on projects this week. Sarah finished Hugo’s dog bed – we are waiting for photos of him curled up on his plush cushion. Ross sorted hundreds of Lego Mindstorm pieces into bins ready for assembling the robot. Corey airbrushed a first coat of paint onto the Scooby-Doo van. Kris applied for a job and applied paint to the tank.

Saturday Film Stuff with Nate: Devon animated her character Kuro using Anime Studio 6. She really challenged herself to learn the new software but she got Kuro talking. Steven has a few more drawings to do and then his characters will be ready to join Kuro. Andrew has finished the foundation structure for his roadside diner diorama and will be cutting the planks for the walls soon. Owen, our latest Autistry recruit is proving to be our most prolific. He has made hundreds of drawings for his epic piece, Party in Fizzletown.

Sunday Build Stuff with Dan The trains are now running on Ryan’s layout. He finished the wiring and is now ready to create the scenery and some buildings. Ian, with a bit of help from AJ, created 6 copper wire martial artists. They are now working on the uniforms (gis) and belts which they will do in clay. Sawyer built the walls on the citadel of his fantasy world – it is really taking shape. The diorama is based on a world of Sawyer’s creation and the construction is his own design!

Tuesday Build Stuff with Dan: Rinny finished principal photography for her project and will begin editing at our next workshop. Breton is planning the last details on Elf World and will be finished in the next few weeks. Erik painted the foundation of his historical Sausalito diorama and experimented with cement casting. Janet experimented with a new recipe for gluten free, dairy free, vegetarian, mushroom burgers. The result was very sloppy Sloppy Joes!

Hope you all have a nice Spring Break!

-Janet, Dan, Nate and AJ

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This entry was posted by Janet Lawson, MFT on Tuesday, April 13th, 2010 at 10:15 am and is filed under Studio Newsletters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.