SteveCover

Steve Schmidt was born in 1985. Eventually it became evident that he was mildly Autistic. Communication skills became tangled, but not his ability and desire to visually express his feelings and perceptions in an enchantingly rich and unique fashion. His drawings began to accumlate as we saved them. They were far too interesting and seemed too important to Steve to discard.

Steve's images seem childlike at first, but then begin to reveal a depth of thought, organization and detail that pull you into them and inspire you to unravel and to understand that tangled web of Autistic thought. Steve's concious desire to share ideas & experiences became quite apparent. These are not childish images at all.

One day, while archiving Steve's drawings on the computer, I Ienlarged one to really enjoy the beauty of the lines and raw shapes he used, without regard to what the objects were. I became further inspired to add some color to them, as pure designs. I couldn't stop! When the drawing was reduced to it's original size, I then realized that we would make a great "artistic team." I could use my professional art background to create color design, using the computer, without changing a single line of Steve's original art.

Comic books are done this way, with different artists who pencil, ink, and color the panels. It was nothing new, just using the same approach in the fine art world. Steve first colors a copy of his art to show his color design concepts. Titles would come from Steve's best effort to describe each piece of art using his signing skills.