Steven Selpal

Art as a vocation despite autism

<p>Biography:<br /><br />STEVEN SANDOR SELPAL<br />Born 11/11/1950, London, Ontario, Canada<br />Palm Bay, Florida<br /><a title="Go to http://www.stevoartist.com/" href="http://www.stevoartist.com/">http://www.stevoartist.com/</a><br /><br />Everyone is different. Art as a career choice is certainly not for everyone, including those who have natural artistic ability. Art has been my life. Form follows function-that&rsquo;s one of my many rules, which are so brilliantly easy to follow that they&rsquo;re automatic. Art is not meant to be &ldquo;pretty.&rdquo; It must spur questions in the minds of viewers, or else it is impotent.<br /><br />In London, Ontario, where I was born, I earned the Special Art Certificate from H.B. Beal, majoring in sculpture, 1970. Later I earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Kent State University, in Kent, Ohio, 1979. At Hickok Technical Institute, I earned an AS certificate in Technical Drawing, 1985. The last certificate gave me skills to enter a large corporation as a draughtsman and I was promoted to positions where they utilized my illustration skills and organizational skills to become a middle manager as a creative director and more.&nbsp;<br /><br />Commercial art paid for my gallery art, so that I could gain exposure. Whether it&rsquo;s art for hire or for a gallery, it always satisfied my aesthetic. From 1980 through 2002, I had one person shows and had participated in group shows in northeastern Ohio.&nbsp;<br /><br />Art and life are humorous. While I was in my last year at Beal, in Canada, I was hospitalized and diagnosed with schizophrenia. The doctors couldn&rsquo;t make a diagnosis of ASD back then. Today, I&rsquo;m still an outpatient of psychiatric care. At 55, I was finally diagnosed with Asperger&rsquo;s Syndrome. I knew I was like this all my life, in my heart, and I laughed.<br /><br />Recently, I have new goals. I did some presentations regarding autism and a TV interview. I want people to know that they can get an education and focus on a career of their choice through persistence, as I have done.<br /><br />My biography is one of 14 bios in Temple Grandin&rsquo;s new book, DIFFERENT &hellip; NOT LESS, pub 2012. My works are published in 2 books by Debra Hosseini, ARTISM, THE ART OF AUTISM, pub 2011 and THE ART OF AUTISM, SHIFTING PERCEPTIONS, pub 2012.<br /><br /><a title="Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kfBf3SJA9I" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kfBf3SJA9I">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kfBf3SJA9I</a><br />This is an interview on WJAX 4 Morning Show<br /><br />There are more videos at the channel StevoArtist1 on Youtube.<br /><a title="Go to http://www.youtube.com/user/StevoArtist1" href="http://www.youtube.com/user/StevoArtist1">http://www.youtube.com/user/StevoArtist1</a><br /><br /><br />My most recent art focuses on my mission towards Autism Awareness. The new series of work called Autism VIPs, introduces to the public the spokesmen for the cause of Autism Awareness. This series includes Temple Grandin, Keri Bowers, Stephen Shore and Debra Hosseini. Soon there will be others who are living as well as those famous individuals who have been purported to be on the ASD (spectrum) posthumously in the writings of Michael Fitzgerald, Tony Attwood and Simon Baron-Cohen. I plan portraits of Newton, Einstein, Tesla, Emily Dickenson, Anais Nin, and St Joan D&rsquo;Arc.<br /><br />On my portrait of Temple Grandin, I used cast fiberglass and created a silicone rubber mold from which I can produce multiples of the fiberglass castings. Since I became interested in casting fiberglass, I began my ongoing series of fiberglass hearts.</p>

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