38 | February 2017 | élan magazine

élan magazine | February 2017 | 39

Ben is a non-speaking autistic boy who has created art that’s become his ultimate vehicle of expression. “MY ARTWORK MEANS THE WORLD TO ME. DOING ART ADDRESSES MY FEELINGS VISUALLY,” Ben says. He hopes his art will help people “RETHINK WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT AUTISM.”

“He can finally show his intelligence behind the art,” says Sara.

As a child, Ben, who was born in Falls Church and currently resides in Fairfax, was a bright and outgoing toddler, an “old soul,” his family recalls, who enjoyed music and the arts. But as symptoms of autism began

HIS ART IS HIS GIFT | BY NATALIA MEGAS

MIXED-MEDIA PAINTER BEN BREAUX

ixed-media painter Ben Breaux is not an ordinary artist. For starters, he’s only 16 and his formal art training came in the form of a

class his mother, Sara, devised for him three years ago when he took up painting.

“Do you relate to Jackson Pollock as an artist?” Sara had asked him then. Ben immediately replied, pointing to a letter board and spelling: “LIKE ME, HE MADE HIS LIFE INTERDEPENDENT OF ART AND CAUSE.” His mom probed him some more. “What does your art mean to you?” she asked. “MY ART IS MY GIFT I DEED TO THE IDEA THINKERS.”

Ben Breaux

Natascha, who experimented with some techniques to make a connection between body and mind that she was learning in school. It was during this time that she introduced Ben to painting.

“He would go around the house with a red tool box of paints and say [with his preprogrammed statements on Proloquo2Go, a program for those who cannot speak], ‘I WANT PAINT’ and he would paint on anything,” his mother recalls. “When we backed off and let him do what he thought was painting, instead of what we thought was painting, he created some amazing work... I wanted to validate what he was doing," Sara adds. "'Art has no rules,’” another mother told her once.

Through lots of experimenting on different surfaces in the house, Ben settled on children’s books as a palette to mix his paints. He discovered that if he coated the books in Crayola glitter paint with his arm guards (which he sometimes wears to protect his skin from injury) and repeatedly pressed the books down onto canvas or construction paper, he was creating layers of dried paint and raised texture.

One of his most fortuitous and impressive paintings is entitled “The Face.” He applied Crayola glitter paint to red card stock paper and then folded the paper in half. He says his process has a lot to do with symmetry, and he enjoys it.

to set in at about 18 months, he regressed. He lost his joy, many motor skills and the ability to speak.

“Ben describes himself as a non-speaking autistic,” rather than the outmoded label of non-verbal, Sara says. “We all know there are many ways to express yourself besides just verbally talking.”

By the time Ben began regressing, Sara had left her position as executive director at the Cable Televising Public Affairs Association and was working full time at home with Ben. At seven years old, Ben’s parents took him out of public school. His condition worsened when at age nine, he was hospitalized for several days with a bleeding ulcer that left him with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “He left the hospital changed. A different child, a haunted one,” says Sara.

“When his individualized education program (IEP) goal for the year was essentially to learn to correctly identify the colors yellow and blue, we put him in a special preschool that worked on sensory integration to help him get his body more under control,” she says. “This is a boy who was saying his alphabet at two. Nope, they [the school] didn’t get him and they didn’t get to keep him.”

When Ben was about 13, the world of painting was introduced to him through his home therapist, Natascha White, who was working on a Master's degree in art therapy. On the weekends, Ben worked on skills with

40 | February 2017 | élan magazine

“IF A PERSON SHOULD SEE BEAUTY

[IN MY ART], I WOULD TAKE IT AS A COMPLIMENT THAT THEY ALSO SEE THE ODE TO MANKIND IN

THIS PAINTING.”– Ben Breaux

élan magazine | February 2017 | 41

STUPID,” he says. “MY EXCUSE FOR A BODY DOES NOT LISTEN TO MY BRAIN AT ALL. WORDS DO NOT DESCRIBE HOW HARD THIS IS. MY BRAIN IS SMART. MY BODY IS NOT.”

Ben describes his artwork as “TIMELESS, SPECIAL AND YOUTHFUL.” He chooses his subject matter based on impulse, but he is inspired by other artists.

“BUT MY LOVE OF THE DIFFERENT WAYS MY SENSES EXPERIENCE PAINTING IS WHAT REALLY INSPIRES ME,” he spells out.

In 2015, Ben chose to donate a portion of the money he earned from the Robinson High School event, the “Robinson Marketplace,” to Our Daily Bread, a Fairfax-based nonprofit that helps people with short-term safety net services. It was then that he created his company Ben ArtFactors that donates to farmer’s markets from his art shows. He says that he wants to help put food on people’s tables because it’s important for families to eat together.

Ben’s work has become so popular that an Alexandria gallery wants to show his paintings.

His advice to students is: “WEAR STUFF THAT DOESN’T GET DIRTY EASILY.”

Editor's Note: Ben's quotes in all caps signifies the interview was done with him spelling out words with a letter board.

Page 38: “The Face,” Crayola glitter paint on red card stock, 8-1/2” x 11”

Page 39: “Fire Storm,” Crayola glitter paint on construction paper, 8-1/2” x 11”

Above: “Eternal Bliss,” (detail), Crayola washable paint, neon colors on construc-

tion paper, 22” x 27”

Opposite: “You Never Sing,” Crayola glitter paint on construction paper, glue, 7” x 6”

Photographs by Rich Condit

“I REALLY LIKE THAT THE FACE IS SO REAL, ESPECIALLY SINCE I DID NOT MEAN TO CREATE IT. IT CAN BE HARD TO DESCRIBE SUCH SENSORY WORK AS MY ART. IF A PERSON SHOULD SEE BEAUTY HERE I WOULD TAKE IT AS A COMPLIMENT THAT THEY ALSO SEE THE ODE TO MANKIND IN THIS PAINTING,” says Ben.

Although Ben was using his Proloquo2Go to pre-program verbal statements, it was limiting. Learning to use the letter board, a relatively new therapy called Rapid Prompt Method (RPM) to communicate his thoughts, freed his mind from the “prison” it was in previously. It finally allowed him to express his thoughts, humor and a sense of self again with the world and the people around him, especially his younger brother, Jonathan, whose award-winning documentary on Ben’s story, Voices Unlocked: A True Story, was screened this summer at the Clifton Film Festival and other venues.

“[RPM] has connected him to the community and it has brought him accolades as a teen, not an autistic teen,” says Sara. “Art has really brought up his self-esteem, which has been beaten down for years.” Even so, Ben still has his good and bad days. On his bad days, he continues to struggle for acceptance.

“EVERY DAY I HAVE TO RESTART MY CAM-PAIGN TO CONVINCE THE SAME PEOPLE I AM NOT