Art Beyond Sight Awareness Alert I:



Art Beyond Sight Awareness Alert I: More to Art than Meets the Eye

As Dr. Marc Maurer, president, National Federation of the Blind states…“Many people believe erroneously that art is primarily a matter of visual appreciation.” …and that art is of no interest to people who are visually impaired. But research has shown that people who are blind are able to understand and represent concepts that we commonly perceive as purely visual.

People who are blind both can and should have access to the world’s visual culture. They should take their place in the arts and museum communities, as participants, contributors, and employees.

spread the word and Bring art to everyone in your community!

JOIN ART BEYOND SIGHT ONLINE COMMUNITY:

in your Field or in your Neighborhood

Discussion Groups -- share your experiences and talk to experts. We have five different discipline-based groups: Museums, Educators, Learning Tools, Community and Advocacy, and Theory and Research.

Listservs. State-by-state or Around the World

Did you know that our institution has been a partner in the Art Beyond Sight collaborative? Well, it’s Art Beyond Sight Annual Awareness Week (Oct 11 – 25). Come see what we’ve been working on!

You can do your part!

• Send this email to everyone on your list

• DON’T MISS ART EDUCATION FOR THE BLIND’S TELEPHONE CRASH COURSE! October 18, 9AM-9PM EST. This 12-session course covers a wide range of topics, from research on tactile perception to best-practices for developing a program for people who are blind. Click here for schedule and instructions about dialing in. Join us for one or all of these sessions. This is a FREE telephone conference call.

• Participate in our eBay Benefit Auction. There are three easy ways you can help: Sell an item on eBay on behalf of Art Education for the Blind (you choose the percentage of your proceeds that go to AEB); buy an item being sold to benefit AEB or make an in-kind donation!

• Register your accessible art program or museum on Vision Connection’s Help Near You searchable database at . This will increase participation in your programs and attract local patrons and tourists who are blind or have low vision.

• Become a mentor ! If you are a museum or an arts professional and would like to participate in an e-mentoring program for someone who is blind or visually impaired, please email your contact information to Artbeyondsight@ ; subject line: Mentor program

What is Art Beyond Sight?

Coordinated by Art Education for the Blind, Art Beyond Sight is an international collaborative of community-based groups and local affiliates of national agencies; museums and other arts-related organizations; elementary and high schools; colleges and universities; national and international advocacy groups; and blind, visually impaired, and sighted art enthusiasts. Art Beyond Sight provides a forum for ongoing interdisciplinary dialogues among researchers and practitioners, who share expertise and materials. On the local level, the collaborative assists museum professionals and other educators; parents; artists; and art lovers to create vehicles for lasting change in their communities.

READ on for more on the artists, museums and exciting projects and events of the Art Beyond Sight Collaborative and Art Beyond Sight Awareness Week 2004.

Artist Focus

Esref Armagan

“I started painting when I was five or six … I think of myself as an artist … and I will probably die drawing,” says Esref Armagan, a congenitally blind figurative artist from Turkey. Art Education for the Blind, Inc. organized Mr. Armagan’s one-man art show in New York City this past May.

Mr. Armagan has been working for the past 35 years. As a child and young adult he never received any formal schooling or training; he taught himself to write and print. He paints primarily in oil. First, using a braille stylus, he etches an outline of what he will paint. He needs to feel that he is "inside" his painting —- in fact, when he is drawing a picture of the sea, he often wonders if he should wear a life jacket so as not drown! When he is satisfied with his drawing, he starts to apply the oils with his fingers, allowing each color to dry before adding the next. He receives no assistance or training from any individual. He has learned to draw perspective, and, also, developed methods of doing portraits. For more information and images of his remarkable work, go to

[Image, titled “Boat with Fish” is a oil-color painting. The upper half of the painting is dominated by a large, green sailboat , with blue sky and white, gray and dark blue clouds behind the boat. In the lower half, two fish swim in water that is divided into three colored areas: red, blue and brown. The fish look up at the boat.]

Museum Focus:

Albright-Knox Art Gallery

1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York 14222-1096. Tel: 716.882.8700 Fax 716.882.1958

More to Art than Meets the Eye: Art Classes for Visually Impaired Adults

Tuesdays, October 19, 26 & November 2 , 5 - 7 P.M.

Sundays, October 24, 31 & November 71:30 - 3:30 P.M.

Education Department Classrooms and Galleries

Instructors: Carrie Marcotte and Jennifer Hirsch Bolduc

Non-members $50 series / Members $35 series

Fee includes materials.

Registration is required.

In recognition of Art Education for the Blind’s second annual Art Beyond Sight Awareness Week, the Gallery’s Matter at Hand program will be sponsoring a series of art making classes for visually impaired adults. This series of six art classes is designed specifically for adults with all levels of vision impairment.

Registrants will attend six 2-hour classes that will include sensory rich tours of the Gallery and multi-media art making experiences. A survey of the Gallery’s permanent collection will be accomplished through touch tours and verbal imaging. Art making using a variety of materials will follow. Topics to be covered include the human figure, landscape, and ways the two are often linked in painting and sculpture.

For more information about adult workshops, please call 270.8283 or visit .

The Dayton Art Institute.

456 Belmonte Park North, Dayton, Ohio, USA (937) 223-5277

website: , email: info@. The Dayton Art Institute is open 365 days a year courtesy of the Bank One Free Admission Endowment. Special exhibitions may carry a fee.

Access Art

Access Art, a collaboration between The Dayton Art Institute and Wright State University, makes art accessible to virtually everyone with a computer and an Internet connection—including individuals with visual, hearing and mobility impairments whose experiences with the world of art may previously have been limited by their disabilities.

For the visitor with vision impairments, this site includes a verbal description of every image to convey the appearance of the work in words. Access Art will allow visitors to select several tour options to explore the Art Institute’s collection. Guided Tours organize artwork according to selected themes, while Custom Tours are based on a visitor’s own personal interests or preferences. Access Art can be visited at accessart.

smARTour

The smARTour offers the opportunity to explore nearly 100 works of art in The Dayton Art Institute’s collection using a hand-held audiowand. Information, which can be accessed randomly, includes Audio Description, a basic description of every art work on the tour, designed to aid visitors with vision impairments, in addition to layers entitled, Leo Shares his Secrets, A Dialogue with the Director, An Artist’s Comments on Art, The Curator’s Perspective, Art in Context and Personal Favorites. The smARTour is free and available during regular museum hours.

Inspirational New Book from Germany:

I Know Where I Am: Children Born Blind Draw the World as They Experience It

By Elke Zollitsch

The author-educator, Elke Zollitsch, created a teaching project enabling two blind children to fully participate in a regular primary school class. For these children, one of the greatest joys of this project was the opportunity to make drawings, side by side with their sighted classmates. Using a sharp pointed pen upon a sheet of plastic, the blind children finished one tactile picture after another creating spontaneous insights for ‘eye-people’ into the world of the child born blind.

When these drawings were later exhibited in Munich, the author described the moving response which inspired the writing of this book:

“So many different people; old and young, sighted and blind, teachers, artists and academics discovered in the pictures at the exhibition an essential testimony of what it is to be human; evidence both strange and distanced yet so close and familiar as to touch one’s innermost feelings….The sighted and the blind began to talk to teach other; could the blind open the eyes of the sighted as to what is really the very essence in life? It seemed so to us!”

Responding to each drawing, the author has written three line Haiku poems, as well as commentary on each drawing and a description of the project’s evolution.

For more information and images, see the author’s website: blinde-zeichnen.de

Selected Art Beyond Sight Awareness Week Events

[Click here for our full Calendar]

October 11

Colorado Ballet, Denver, is hosting "Ballet To-Go," a hands-on ballet trunk and introduction to ballet for people who are blind and visually impaired, from 6-7:30 p.m. This is a free event; call (303) 837-8888, ext. 19, for information and reservations.

The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota , FL , has accessibility tours available throughout Awareness Week; call (941) 359-5762 to arrange.

October 12

American Folk Art Museum, NYC , is offering descriptive tours by Janet Lo, manager of school and docent programs, of the museum's permanent collection at 1 p.m. The tour is geared towards an adult audience, but adaptable for children. Please call (212) 265-1040, ext. 119, to confirm tour.

Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL , has a free concert of 18 th -century music (instrumental and choral) by students at the Alabama School of Fine Arts , in its Steiner Auditorium beginning at 10:15 a.m. After the performance, students who are blind and visually impaired will be invited to feel the instruments. A Studio art session will follow, with holiday card contests for students. Contact lbrasher@ for more information.

The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, Jacksonville, FL , is holding its second annual Open House, which will highlight programs such as touch tours, an art exhibit, music by students from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind, use of tactile drawings, art-making activities and a book signing by Jan Bevan, a children's book author who is blind.

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Art Education for the Blind’s

Art Beyond Sight Awareness Week is Here!

Celebrate October 11-25!

Awareness Week is a chance for museums, libraries, schools and other community institutions – even individuals –to showcase the work they are doing to promote art education for people who are blind or visually impaired.

Our Awareness Week will launch with a Press Conference at the steps of City Hall, NYC at 9 AM. If you are in New York City, come join us!

[pic]

My Tandem, Suzanne, 9 years old. Drawing, red and blue pen on plastic sheet.

Ms Zollitsch describes the image:

“Suzanne's tandem bicycle fills the page, one complete unit: a broad, sweeping handlebar with padded grips, a stable frame with two saddles. and a flag at the back.”

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