The Milton Independent
Milton, VT
Vol. 13, No. 31
September 23, 2005

FILM ABOUT MILTON ARTIST GOES TO INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL

- Kate Miller

Larry Bissonnette is an artist who loves to let his feelings flow through his paintbrush onto his canvas. He handcrafts the frames of his paintings in his Burlington studio, and has sold paintings at his numerous art shows. On the inside, he has a wealthy vocabulary, a funny sense of humor, a penchant for McDonald’s french fries, and a love for creating art through thick brushstrokes and bold colors.

On the outside, Bissonnette is bound by the autism he was born with.

His complex, humorous, and artistic thoughts can be expressed using a computer; usually those thoughts are impeded by difficulties with speaking, a symptom of autism.

"(The) ladle of doing language meaningfully is lost in soup of disabled map of autism so I need a potholder of touch to grab it," Bissonnette writes.

Bissonnette and his Howard Center caseworker, Pascal Cheng, have been using this system, called facilitated communication - for over 10 years. With Cheng sitting beside him resting a hand on his shoulder, Bissonnette pecks out letters on the keyboard and his thoughts appear across the screen.

When asked what he loves most about creating art, Bissonnette typed his answer. "(It's a) little like letting your body tension (be) very lessened through yoga. You paint and let urges to move your hand freely release your pent up feelings," he typed.

The dichotomy of Bissonnette's life is the subject of a short documentary, "My Classic Life as an Artist: A Portrait of Larry Bissonnette," which has been screened at several film festivals around the United States. It has been selected for the International Short Film Festival in Munich, Germany, one of 26 films from 300 entries in 43 countries.

The film was produced by Douglas Biklen and Zach Rossetti, a team from Syracuse University. Biklen has been involved with Academy-Award nominated short documentaries like "Educating Peter" and "Autism is a World."

Bissonnette lives with his sister, Sally Verway, in Milton, and both will be attending the Nov. 2 screening in Munich, courtesy of the festival. Bissonnette said he enjoyed seeing the documentary about his life.

"Larry expected to see less in home (scenes) but interestingly enough that was humorously and realistically shown," he typed. When asked about his film being selected for the international film festival in Germany, he returned to typing.

"Meticulously combed hair," he typed, with giggling at this part, "went straight up with excitement."

As far as whether he'd like to make another documentary in the future, his sense of humor still reigns. "Most sequels aren't very highly thought of, so probably not," he typed.

He hopes the film's message about his life of painting and living with autism will teach something about seeing a person's surface without making snap judgments. Bissonnette hopes the viewer will see, "That (a) person's outward appearance only asks the question of what is inside a person," he typed, "but doesn't answer it."

Bissonnette has dealt with a lifetime of being viewed from the outside. In the years before he could communicate through the computer, he was often stereotyped and his autism was misdiagnosed as mental retardation or schizophrenia.

From the age of 8 through 18, he lived at the Brandon Training School; a place he referred to as, "better for growing vegetables rather than people."

According to his sister, Sally Verway, Bissonnette was then sent to the Vermont Psychiatric Hospital in Waterbury. After finding him in a terrible state in Waterbury, Verway fought to become his legal guardian and immediately took over his care.

Verway said his documentary is a good way to show how understanding of mental health has changed over the years. "He wants to make sure that what happened to him, being put in an institution, never happens to anyone else," she said.

Bissonnette and Verway are excited for their trip to Germany. Bissonnette, a "big meat diner," is looking forward to two main things - beer and beef dishes.

Verway laughed as she recalled a recent dinner where Bissonnette took about three leaves of lettuce from the salad bowl and tried to pass it off as a sufficient helping.

Upon hearing this story, Bissonnette returns to the keyboard. "Sally isn't making nearly-starved Larry eat salad on the trip."