Autistry Newsletter – July 8, 2011
Janet Lawson, MFT | July 8, 2011
Tomorrow we are back from vacation! I hope you all enjoyed a little time off from your projects and are ready to get back to work. The 2011 Summer Session Schedule is now posted and can be found here. Most of the workshops are continuing with little change. Note that the Saturday Build Workshop now starts at 11am and ends at 3pm. The Film Workshop will start again in the Fall.
The addition this summer is the new class taught by Dan and Liz – Build/Drama Workshop. This is a 6-week workshop starting Sunday July 10th and running through August 14th. The workshop will include some acting improvisation and character building as well as theater prop construction. We are excited about this new approach and Liz will be developing new theater workshops for the fall.
The Autistry Storybook Playhouse was delivered to Grattan Elementary in San Francisco. The Playhouse was built by Autistry students and purchased at the fundraising event in March by Becky Foust. Becky donated the Playhouse to Pamela Wolfberg’s Autism Institute of Peer Socialization and Play. Pamela has been working with Grattan Elementary to create an ‘Autism Friendly” play space. The Storybook Playhouse will be an awesome addition to the new playground.
Watch for news of Eunice the Unicorn by Owen Bragg.
Copies of this first book project by Autistry Studios and SLM Creative will be available for purchase from the Autistry website very soon. Suzi Musgrove and Owen did a fabulous job on this. Owen’s new book, Ketinga goes to print next week. A few more of these projects and we will have created Autistry Publishing!
Kudos to Daniel M. who finished the first Autistry musical instrument project! Daniel worked very hard on his acoustic guitar – lots of sanding and many coats of shellac. This was a long process as it took lots of time for each layer of shellac to dry. But last week Daniel put the bridge on, inserted the tuners, attached the strings and tuned it up with an online program. Now for the music lessons…
Ken Pontac visited Autistry last week. Ken is a writer of graphic novels and film scripts. He is also the creator of Bump in the Night , an animated program for ABC TV. Ken will return to Autistry later this year to do a ‘show and tell’ of his work for our Autistry students. We’ll send out an announcement when we have more information.
Last week Nancy Dow Moody and Barry Benda of Lifehouse gave a presentation to our Autistry families about residential services available in Marin County. This is an issue that is very important to our families – where will our children live when they are ready to leave home? The presentation got us all thinking of creative solutions for our very creative kids.
The Autistry Parent Support Group will meet next on Thursday, July 14th at 7pm at Autistry Studios. This is a great place to discuss issues and to get feedback from others who have been there, are there now or will be there soon. The meetings are free for Autistry members (families currently enrolled in workshops) and $10 for others. Email Janet at janet@autistry.com if you plan to attend.
