Sharing the Vision! Adventures of Willy the Wombat With Autistic Artist Nicole L. Brettell and Kenneth W. Wright, MD
Sharing the Vision! Adventures of Willy the Wombat With Autistic Artist Nicole L. Brettell and Kenneth W. Wright, MD
By Kenneth W. Wright, MD
I can’t draw to save my life, so I totally admire those who can! Enter my niece Nicole. She is a very sweet 24 year old who can draw, and draw very well. In fact she is attending California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks studying illustration, animation, and creative writing. Cal Lu BTW is also my alma mater. What is quite remarkable is that Nicole is special - she is autistic.
Autism is not very well understood and the cause remains unknown. To tell you the truth, as a physician who has studied and even lectured on autism, I still find the subject confusing. There’s so much variability with a wide spectrum of severity and diversity in personalities. Some autistic people are fully functional in society, perhaps only with a little quirky introverted personality, while others are locked in their own word and are totally dependent.
Common characteristics do exist. Autistic children have an extremely short attention span. Parents often think there is a vision problem because the child’s eyes dart from object to object. Their fleeting visual attention is not because of poor vision, it is a manifestation of their extremely short attention span. They do not sustain visual concentration unless it is something they find interesting. Animated videos and illustrated books are often compelling to autistic children.
Another common characteristic is being introverted. They generally keep their thoughts to themselves. Autistic children are not big on personal interaction. When talking to an autistic child they tend to look away avoiding eye contact. It’s difficult for them to share their thoughts and emotions verbally. They can become frustrated with communication so they physically express themselves by a kicking and screaming meltdown. These traits, however, can change with maturation and loving encouragement.
Individuals with autism tend to have a narrow focus of interest, becoming extremely well educated in a specific field. They zoom in with a photographic-like memory storing all facts and even seemingly extraneous information. Inability to maintain concentration on other subjects makes schoolwork extremely difficult for autistic children. Despite difficulty with classic academic achievements autistic people can have an area where they excel. Sometimes autistic individuals have super human abilities. Remember “Rain Man” who could calculate the number of tooth picks spilled on the floor in seconds and could do high level math in his head? He was autistic.
Similar to most autistic children, as a young child my niece Nicole was significantly withdrawn in her own world. She avoided eye contact and would not respond to conversation. My sister tried various clinical therapies which provided some positive effect. She was a practicing dentist at the time but decided to quit dentistry to work with Nicole full time. With love and constant reinforcement Nicole’s psycho-social development improved dramatically. I remember my sister encouraging young Nicole to use her words and keep eye contact when talking to someone. It was difficult and extremely frustrating at times, but my sis would not give up. She gave Nicole constant repetitive positive reinforcement. Nicole’s social development improved and almost miraculously her behavior evolved. She developed into a happy well-adjusted sweet young women. If everyone had Nicole’s heart there would be no fights - there would be no wars.
For my niece, her special skills are in art and literature. My sister was driving me to the airport recently and Nicole wanted to go with me. For some reason we have a strong connection and for the life of me I don’t know why, but she really loves her uncle (me!). I sat in the back seat thinking Nicole would sit up front with her Mother. To my surprise she sat in the back with me leaving my sister in the front driving by herself like a limo driver. So sweet that Nicole wanted to sit with her Uncle Ken.
On the way to the airport Nicole gave me a fantastic tutorial on mythical creatures in classical literature all off the top of her head… no notes! Then she pulls out a fully illustrated book that she did herself, both the writing and the art work. Nicole explained it was a school project for her literature course. The book was amazing. I loved that she loved sharing the book with me. Nicole has difficulty with simple math, but she is at home with art and literature. I, however, as a dyslexic avoided those subjects like the plague. I truly enjoy watching Shakespeare plays they’re fantastic, but couldn’t stand reading the plays in high school. Nicole loves both.
So what the heck has this to do with Willie the Wombat? Well I’ve always been enamored with the super cute creature the wombat from Australia. Then one day, my surgical technician Susie returned from an Australian vacation with a stuffed animal wombat as a gift for me. We immediately gave him the nickname “Willy the Wombat” and placed him on the back table of the operating room. He stood proudly as our mascot! During surgery we would muse about how cool it would be to write a children’s book on the adventures of Willy the wombat. Don’t worry we were not distracted, we are crazy careful in surgery.
Years had gone by, then at a family barbeque out of nowhere it came to me to approach Nicole about the Willy the Wombat project. I said, “Nicole you could do the illustrations and I would write the story, what do you think?” She replied that she loves wombats, and yes she would love to do the project.
Our book series “Adventures of Willie the Wombat” are stories based on children’s life experiences. Each book has two sections. The first section is a full color illustrated story book with a fun yet educational message. The second section consists of coloring/activity pages with sketches for coloring, connecting the dots game, a maze, and a page for the child to draw their own wombat. We’ve just released our first book, “Willie’s First Day at School” and thankfully have had a great enthusiastic and warm response. In the preface Nicole insisted on disclosing that she is autistic with the hope that her book might inspire an autistic child. Proceeds from the book goes to our Foundation for children with ocular disorders.
For book orders or to contact us please email to wrightcenter2020@gmail.com
About the Artist
Nicole L. Brettell is a college student at California Lutheran University studying illustration, animation, creative writing, and multimedia concepts. She is a special person with autism who has a beautifully sweet artistic style.
About the Writer
Kenneth W. Wright, MD is a world-renowned pediatric eye surgeon who writes most of the major textbooks in his field. Nicole the artist is his niece. Dr. Wright has 5 children and had to operate on his youngest son with an excellent result.