[Art_beyond_sight_learning_tools] articles art

[Lisa Yayla]

excerpt The art of a hero
http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/napervillesun/entertainment/299123,6_5_NA16_HEROES_S1.article

What's really amazing is that Sale doesn't actually paint.

"I'm color blind," he said. "I can't paint."

To simulate something that looks like painting (which he frequently uses 
for some of his comics work) Sale uses an ink wash technique that 
produces a largely black-and-white image. He dilutes the ink to produce 
subtler gray tones.

article

Museum Offers Tour Allowing Blind to Touch Artwork
March 11th, 2007 @ 4:42pm
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- With blue latex gloves on their hands, blind 
visitors were treated to a hands-on tour of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

The special event allowed sightless visitors to touch a statue of French 
King Louis XIV and tap a statuette of a stone mason to hear the 
hollowness of the bronze.

"This is a chance to feel what everybody else gets to see," said visitor 
Matthew Barnhill.

The museum played host to tours for 40 blind visitors Saturday, allowing 
for the first time a hands-on exploration of its exhibits.

Kira Larkin, vice president of the Utah Council of the Blind, called it 
an advancement for the blind in a world so often characterized by "No 
touching" signs.

The museum's accessibility coordinator, Jenny Woods, hopes to make the 
touch tours a more common occurrence at the museum.

"It's a slightly different way of experiencing art," she said. "But it's 
certainly a great way to experience art."

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=977240



article




http://www.themonitor.com/onset?id=638&template=article.html

Local artist fuses tattoo art, pop art and graffiti
Travis M. Whitehead
March 9, 2007 - 10:22AM

Marcus Farris EDINBURG — When Marcus Farris takes a day off, chances are 
he’s indulging his creative bent in a variety of styles.

Farris, 35, describes his art as “generally somewhere between what you 
would call low brow influence and popular art, a mix of readable images 
and text.”

Farris, who is legally blind, but can still see well enough to draw at 
close range, hasn’t let his condition slow him down. He is the head of 
art education at the University of Texas-Pan American; he said his 
subject matter ranges pretty freely according to his varying inclinations.

“I just finished a piece the first of this semester that was just simply 
an adaptation of an old Japanese samurai on kind of a stark background 
with text running along the side that says, ‘The Trail Ends Here,’” he 
said. “It’s real simple. Some of it’s real site-specific depending on 
what the subject matter I’m working with is.”

He draws on a broad collage of influences, from traditional fine art to 
popular art, underground, graffiti and tattoo flash art.

“For the past two years I’ve been getting my research background in 
underground and low brow and street art.” he said, “That kind of 
encompasses everything from turn-of-the-century printmakers to 
illustrators to the guys that do comic books.”

Farris has managed to create an interesting fusion of pop art and 
Japanese themes. In the piece “Forget to Think,” a Japanese woman in a 
blue kimono has her nation’s flag — a rising sun — in bold red colors 
across her back. Japanese characters run down the side.

The work “Ring Around the Rosie” depicts a young boy looming over a 
sports car where a pair of hands is raising a broken skull, while a 
banner with the words “We All Fall Down” flutters around a flower. All 
of this is created in bold, almost audacious, yet entertaining colors.

Farris’ style also has strong elements of tattoo art. Farris likes to 
work with tattoo flash art, the name for the pictures people see when 
they walk into a tattoo shop. This flash art on the wall gives customers 
a large selection to choose for their own tattoos. The tattoo artist 
breaks the image down into a line drawing, then colors it in.

“A lot of what I do, I take these line drawings and combine pieces,” 
Farris said. “I may add text, turn them into a more painterly standpoint.”

Much of his work is taken from images he’s created or from photographs 
he’s located, readapted and juxtaposed with readable text, he said; 
obviously, as in “Forget to Think,” the text isn’t always in English. He 
has friends who “translate everything from Spanish to Japanese to German.”

Artwork is as much a part of him as breathing; he’s been drawing, he 
said, since he was “about two feet long.”

“Professionally I’ve been working and selling for about 12 years now,” 
he said. “Like I said, it’s just kind of been a natural progression. 
I’ve always just kind of drawn and painted. I really didn’t get 
super-involved in a lot of stuff probably until right out of high 
school, in terms of focusing on art being a career, something other than 
a hobby.”
What motivates him to keep creating?

“Basically I’m kind of just an information and visual junkie,” he said. 
“Some studies have come out in the last few years that show people look 
at art for three to seven seconds. Part of my goal is to get you past 
that seven-second mark. If it doesn’t get you to feel or think 
something, regardless of the subject matter, you are missing out.”



article

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/entertainment/16845437.htm
THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND: Co-produced with Accessible Arts. Opens March 
13; 10 a.m. March 13; 10 a.m. and noon March 14-15; 10 a.m., noon and 7 
p.m. March 16; 2 p.m. March 17-18; closes April 1. Coterie Theatre, 
Crown Center Shops, Level One. Audio description built into narrative of 
play; non-sighted and sighted each have full access. Most appreciated by 
ages 10 and up. www.coterietheatre.org (816-474-6552)


The Country Of The Blind
By Frank Higgins, from the story by H.G. Wells
A Co-Production with Accessible Arts

March 13- April 1, 2007
http://www.coterietheatre.org/


excerpt article http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=901

One Hundred Years of Fortitude

Blind Ambition: Years after losing his vision, Graber continues to make art.


The off-white carpet in Abe Graber’s Gaithersburg, Md., apartment is 
marked by several splotches of paint. The stains could be the byproduct 
of any number of paintings that decorate Graber’s walls and occupy his 
closet, but he doesn’t take note of them. Legally blind from macular 
degeneration since 2004, the 103-year-old Graber spends most of his days 
listening to books on tape, napping, and, when he can, making art.

Graber stopped painting when he lost his eyesight, but since last year 
he has slowly been making art with the help of his 66-year-old son and 
caretaker, George Graber, as well as hospice workers. “When I lost my 
sight in my right eye in 2000, I felt so terrible that I couldn’t get 
over it. Then in the other, it was 20/268. That gave me a little light. 
It was terrible,” says Abe Graber. “I didn’t decide to stop painting. I 
couldn’t decide to do any painting.”



article
http://examiner.gmnews.com/news/2007/0301/Front_Page/022.html

Audio tour opens show to visually impaired


A special audio tour of the Monmouth County Arts Council (MCAC) Juried 
Art Show will allow audiences with low vision or visual impairments to 
enjoy a firsthand experience of the art exhibit.

Thanks to the generosity of Community Foundation of Monmouth County, the 
New Jersey Blind Citizen Association, in collaboration with MCAC, has 
created and donated an audio description of the MCAC 28th annual Juried 
Art Show and Sale. Providing the technology to record and edit the audio 
tour, Tom Brennan of 90.5 The Night was instrumental in MCAC's 
initiative to enable many more people with sight loss or impairments to 
enjoy the art exhibit, according to a press release.

"When organizations team up to deliver services to the community, 
everyone benefits from the experience," said Mary Eileen Fouratt, MCAC 
executive director. "While the MCAC Juried Art Show has always been an 
accessible event, this year the show's audio description will be equally 
engaging for people with visual impairments and anyone who wants a 
description of the art in the exhibit."

The audio description, which runs about 18 minutes, concentrates on 
relaying information on the show, juror and artists, as well as the 
visual appeal of the artwork.

Narrated by Sue Ferraro, an art teacher at Camp Happiness, the audio 
tour describes not only the visual aspects of the work, but also its 
emotional context. In addition, several sculptors have granted 
permission to allow visually impaired visitors to touch their artwork.

"We are pleased to have this opportunity to serve the blind and visually 
impaired community directly," Fouratt said. "We hope that the audio 
description will enhance their imaginations and increase their enjoyment 
of the exhibit."

Listening devices are available at the Monmouth Museum or art 
enthusiasts can audio tour the exhibit online at MCAC's Internet Web 
site www.monmouthartscouncil.org/jas.php or download the audio 
description to their own mp3 player. Works will continue to be on 
display and available for purchase until the end of the exhibition on 
March 4.

The Monmouth Museum, 765 Newman Springs Road (Route 520), Lincroft, is 
open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Sunday from 
1-5 p.m. Admission is $6 per person; Monmouth Museum members and 
children under 2 are free.

For more information or group visits contact the museum at (732) 747-2266.