Little Iris Halmshaw loves
to paint. She does so with intense focus and concentration. The results are
abstract and impressionistic: there is something of Monet’s Water Lilies in her
serene, aqueous style. Iris’s work is creating a buzz in the art world. A
private collector has just bought two of her original works for £1,500 each.
Prints are being snapped up for as much as £295. A solo exhibition in London,
and subsequent auction, are planned. All of which would be gratifying for any
emerging young talent. But Iris is just three years old. What makes her
achievement even more extraordinary, however, is the fact she is autistic. She
cannot speak, other children unnerve and distress her, the unpredictability of
the world fills her with fear and panic. But art has soothed and calmed her — a
source of delight and a therapy. ‘When Iris was diagnosed with autism, the key
was to find something she loved to do,’ says her mum, Arabella Carter-Johnson.
‘I’d taken her to a playgroup, but it had been disastrous.
‘There was one particularly
noisy toy train that made her very distressed. She’d have a meltdown, an
uncontrolled tantrum, any time a child played with it.
‘She’d bite into the
plastic spoon she always carries in her left hand until her head shook. She’d
cling to me like a limpet, throw her body towards the door and hit me if we
didn’t leave. ‘At home, she became withdrawn. She would bite her lip until
it bled.’
Arabella, 32, who runs her
own wedding photography business, sought ways to still the chaos in her
daughter’s mind and make play constructive and happy.
‘I recreated a play-school
at home. The whole place became a fun house. We got a range of sensory toys,
which Iris loved.
‘We put a paddling pool in
my home office and filled it with plastic balls and installed a trampoline in
the sitting room. Play, fun and laughter were the goal, and I wanted to teach
Iris to interact with me, instead of being immersed entirely in her own world.’
She stumbled on art almost
by accident. ‘One day I drew some stick men and Iris found them really funny.
My mum bought an easel and we got the paint out. Iris made one brush stroke and
the paint dribbled down to the bottom of the page. She was furious and burst
into tears.
‘But I figured out the
problem: it wasn’t the paint, it was the fact she couldn’t control it. So I put
a sheet of paper on a table instead of the easel and straightaway she filled
the whole page. She seemed to know intuitively what to do.’
Iris has all the focus of a
seasoned artist. Her mother describes how she paints a little bit, before
standing back, considering, planning her next brush stroke. She paints with a
range of tools — sponges, stamps, brushes, even a plastic fork.
‘She’d readily paint for
five hours a day. But I have to persuade her to practise other things as well,
such as puzzles or doing up buttons.’
On the day I visit Iris,
Arabella and her husband Peter-Jon Halmshaw, 43, at their home near Market
Harborough, Leicestershire, Iris — sweet-faced with watchful, dark eyes that
never quite meet your gaze — is in a tranquil and happy mood.
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