Thursday, Mar 11, 2021
4:00 pm PST (Zoom)

This conversation pairs Los Angeles-based artist Deborah Martin in conversation with Dr. Emma Salzman, Assistant Clinical Professor at UC San Francisco Center for ASD & NDDs. Employing Deborah’s painting series “Portraits of Autism,” which seeks to create social awareness of children and adults diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder as a starting point, the panelists will discuss public representations and perceptions of people living with ASD, support systems available to caregivers, and the evolving sociocultural understanding of autism.

Deborah Martin (b. Boston, 1961) is a contemporary American Painter based in Southern CA. Martin received her BFA and BS Masters of Arts in Teaching, Art Education from The Museum School of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. Martin’s artistic work examines the complexities of individual experience particularly in relation to home, isolation and memory. Her stark landscape paintings often feature marginalized communities located on the fringes of American society. In 2016, Martin turned her focus to portraiture developing a long term project Portraits of Autism exploring the relationship and impact autistic children have within their immediate family and community on a continuum. Deborah’s work seeks to unpack the nuances of popular opinion, specifically how public support offered to children with ASD subsides once they age into adulthood.

Dr. Emma Salzman is a licensed clinical psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. She specializes in comprehensive diagnostic evaluations and provides evidence-based treatment for a range of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorders. Dr. Salzman has an interest in minimally verbal individuals across the lifespan and has specialized training in the assessment of these individuals. Specifically, she has experience conducting parent-training interventions, including Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) and Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT), as well as individual treatment using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to address co-occurring disorders such as anxiety. She has a burgeoning interest in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) to help treat co-occurring disorders and promote parent/family resiliency. Over years of research and practice, Dr. Salzman has developed a strong interest in behavioral phenotyping, differential diagnosis, parenting, and parent and family resiliency. Dr. Salzman graduated with a BA in Psychology and Studio Art from the University of Vermont, received her Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology from the PGSP-Stanford Psy.D. Consortium, and completed her pre-doctoral internship in pediatric psychology at the University of Oregon Health and Science in Portland Oregon, and the Leadership and Education in Neurodevelopmental Disorders (LEND) program. She completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.

The Common Ground: Artist Reimagining Community multi-part transdisciplinary lecture series pairs an artist and researcher in conversation to discuss concepts of “community” from their disciplines. Adjunct Visual Art Department professor Jennifer Vanderpool, Ph.D. created the programming in conjunction with curating the exhibition. Inspired by mutual aid societies, Vanderpool integrated the participatory strategies of social practice art that organizes communities in debate and collaboration with curatorial activism approaches that challenge the assumptions and erasures of voices in hegemonic narratives to develop Common Ground: Artist Reimagining Community.

Image: Deborah Martin, Buddha with Service Dog Mouse, Oil on canvas, 42 x 52 inches, 2017. Courtesy of the artist.