Seeing with your imagination!

Where did the idea come from?

See the round pizza-like clay on the desk? It started there. The idea of seeing-thought that is!

My friend sliced a section from the bottom of the pizza then cut it into mini-slices, also on the desk.

At first glance I thought we were having a lesson in fractions. (and it definitely could have been!)

The creative sauce just kept flowing; he added piece, after triangular piece, to the central hunk of clay. In a flash, the former pizza-like shape transformed into a cartoon figure.

"Ever hear of Lilo and Stitch?" he asked before he was right back into his imaginative work.

As he shaped the clay a steady procession of figures paraded across my desk. Some existed only briefly before they were mashed-up, others stuck around for a radical transformation.

Hummm. What to make...I know!

See the ball of clay in my friend's hand? It didn't stay round for long!

To be clear, this wasn't a lesson in clay therapy.  We were actually working on the Davis Identity Program and were transitioning from the concept of Perception (what you see) to Thought (what you think).  Earlier we'd looked at things around us.  Sometimes we saw things the same way, sometimes differently--like the sky outside on the cloudy day.

Then the figures began.

"Where did you get your ideas for your figures? I asked"

"Some from cartoons. Some of them come from my imagination." he told me.

Stay tuned! Here's the beginning of thought!

From there I began to understand that the central idea for the characters came from more than one source. His ideas started with imaginary creatures from books, movies and cartoons but I also saw how he changed them in a flash to the next figure.

When I asked if these could all be part of the imagination, he said no.

"No. Once you make something for real, then it's not imagination anymore." he said.

And so I began to understand his idea of what real-imaginary-thought was as he worked the clay.

The line-up of characters across my desk that began with the frog were to showcase thought.  Next we'll add a model of self, with a thought-bubble showing just what he was thinking about but for now I want to leave it to your imagination to think about seeing-imagination.

For more information on the Davis Autism Approach go to:

www.onpointlearning.org
http://www.davisautism.com/what_daa.html