[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] Art Education for the Blind in the news

[Lisa Yayla]

Hi,
Sending link and text to article in post-gazette Local news
from Pittsburgh Pennsilvania.
Regards,
Lisa

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04289/396236.stm

International project puts art in the grasp of the blind

Friday, October 15, 2004

By Johnna A. Pro, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In art class yesterday, Terrell McCorkle worked diligently
fashioning clay into  the shape of a fruit bowl, a banana
and grapes.

His hands worked quickly, kneading the dough-like glob into
familiar fruit shapes as his friends and classmates around
him did the same.

"I'm going to make a burger," said one.

"How does my snake look?" another  called out.

It mattered not what they sculpted, just that they were
having the experience, one being shared by thousands of
people around the world through Oct. 25.

Unlike other art students, McCorkle, 18, of Wilkinsburg, and
his  classmates are blind. They are  enrolled at Western
Pennsylvania School for Blind Children in Oakland, which is
participating in an
international effort called Art Beyond Sight, which grew
from 30 organizations last year to 70 this year.

The project encourages museums, cultural arts groups and
schools to host programs for the blind or those who have
only partial sight. The events range  from special touch
tours at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York   City
to a backstage tour and audio description of the Denver
Ballet's production of "Dracula."

In Pittsburgh, the event at the School for the Blind was an
art class with  award-winning local sculptor Robert
Qualters.

   "The project shakes up everyone's understanding of
blindness or visual  impairment," said Nina Levent,
associate director for the nonprofit Art   Education for the
Blind based in New York City, which started Art Beyond  
Sight last year.   "Some people still think blindness and
the visual arts are an unlikely match.
  They think it's a joke. It isn't. Creativity doesn't end
when you lose your sight,"  she said.

  "There has been enough research to show blind people can
understand visual  concepts," Levent said.

As part of the project, a daylong conference call on Monday
will bring together experts from various fields to talk
about ways of making art more accessible to the blind.

 Museums, for example, can provide reproductions or models
that blind  people can touch, host verbal description tours,
or even have actors re-enact  a painting.
"Touch operates the way sight does. Whatever they touch
they'll form an image of," Levent said. 
 Art Education for the Blind was founded in 1987 by a
Harvard graduate  student Elizabeth Salzhauer Axel, whose
grandmother was losing her sight.

 One of the group's key efforts also has been to produce a
six-volume set about art history that includes raised text
and images. The series covers basic art and includes volumes
on modern European, Baroque, ancient Greek, and  ancient
Egyptian art, and arts of Africa and the Americas.