Meet Indie South Artist - Judah Cannarella

Judah is a twelve year old boy who loves animals, draws constantly, and has autism.  Judah prefers to work in black an white using and tends to draw similar pictures of things that interest him repeatedly. Most of what he will be showing and selling at the fair will be set designs and drawings from the film Frankenweenie, scenes from The Haunted Mansion ride and The Enchanted Tiki room at Disney world, The Wizard of Oz, and Harry Potter, though there's a lot more stuff. 

 Judah has autism, and his attention to detail and perseveration on specific topics make for some beautiful and provocative work. Judah refused to hold a pencil, crayon, or paint brush until he was almost six, but since then, he's not stopped. Typically, Judah will wake up at five am and begin to draw before the family wakes up, and he will stop to eat breakfast or play on the computer before continuing to draw throughout the day. He will only draw with a Uni-Ball Signo gel pen, and we go through a couple a week. It's a little bananas. Judah gets a lot of positive feedback about his drawings, and that's really important since at school he is often bullied and gets little positive reenforcement from academics. He's still very much delayed in motor skills, speech, reading, writing, and math, and it's our hope that he can learn to turn his drawing talent into a future. 

I am enclosing a link to a video of Judah describing a drawing he made form his teacher, Vicki Thompson at Timothy Road Elementary. It's of the 44 presidents of the United States. It kind of the most adorable thing I can imagine.  

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_v19xNgpxWyb245c1pLLW41NFU/edit?usp=sharing