[accessibleimage] Articles, Sculpture, ralley, haptics, ViewPlus, auction

From: Lisa Yayla <fnugg@xxxxxxxxx>
To: art_beyond_sight_educators@xxxxxxxxxx, art_beyond_sight_theory_and_research@xxxxxxxxxx, art_beyond_sight_learning_tools@xxxxxxxxxx, art_beyond_sight_advocacy@xxxxxxxxxx, artbeyondsightmuseums@xxxxxxxxxx, accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2005 19:01:57 +0100

Hi,
Sending a mixed batch of articles. Links to articles first,
followed by text.
Regards,
Lisa

Sculpture offers touch of Eugene

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/02/21/b1.cr.braillesculpture.0221.html
Touching Art
http://www2.kval.com/x30530.xml?ParentPageID=x2649&ContentID=x49277&Layout=kval.xsl&AdGroupID=x30530

Guided by blind, they drive to their goal
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=118484

haptic
http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/news/article/0,2564,ALBQ_19855_3576012,00.html
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-02/ns-tts022305.php

photography
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002186426_blind22.html

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/212965_ecenter22.html

ViewPlus
Successful vision

http://www.gazettetimes.com/articles/2005/02/22/news/business/monbiz01.txt

accessible art auction
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/living/10963198.htm
http://accessiblearts.org/

College Play
http://www.hometownannapolis.com/cgi-bin/read/2005/02_23-68/ENT

Most of the plays are comedies, except scenes from William
Gibson's "The Miracle Worker," the story of blind and deaf
Helen Keller, whose teacher, Anne Sullivan, taught her to
communicate.

February 21, 2005

Sculpture offers touch of Eugene

By Randi Bjornstad
The Register-Guard

Relishing the warm, nearly spring sun atop Skinner Butte
recently, Jeanne-Marie Moore took in the view from the top
of the historic hill: tall conifers in the foreground,
downtown businesses and houses stretching south along
Willamette Street, Spencer Butte far in the background.
But instead of using her eyes to enjoy the sights, Moore
used her fingertips. Blind since birth, the Eugene resident
traced streets and landmarks on a bronze bas-relief
sculpture created by local artist Martha Snyder.

The heavy plaque will be installed permanently on top of the
butte on Tuesday to give vision-impaired people a "tactile
view" of the landscape as well as offering an artistic
rendering of the scene for others who visit the viewing
area.

Jeanne-Marie Moore runs her fingers over the bronze
sculpture by artist Martha Snyder that depicts a tactile
view from the top of Skinner Butte.

Martha Snyder (right) helps Jeanne-Marie Moore feel her way
around the bronze sculpture on Skinner Butte.

Photos: Chris Pietsch / The Register-Guard

"Is this a spire?" Moore asked as she ran her fingers over
the downtown area.

"No, it's the top of the old Eugene Hotel," Snyder said.
"But this building is a church with a cross on top," she
continued, guiding Moore's fingers to the historic First
Christian Church at East 11th Avenue and Oak Street.

Moore pronounced the sculpture a success, despite the
difficulty for a never-sighted person to grasp the concepts
of distance and perspective that seeing counterparts take
for granted.

"When I was growing up, everyone stressed adapting to being
blind," she said. "Exploring what I was missing wasn't in
the game plan. But having some understanding of dimension
and perspective has a huge effect on a person's world view,
and that's the importance of something like this sculpture."

She recalls vividly such an experience during her first trip
to Europe, when a friend encouraged her to stand on the base
of a statue in the Louvre gallery and feel the flowing
tresses of the marble figure.

Despite the uproar that it caused - "a guard followed us
around for the rest of the time we were there," Moore
remembers wryly that simple touch gave her a perception that
could not have happened any other way.

Snyder has been trying to provide that kind of world view
for people with disabilities ever since she realized while
working at the Maude Kerns Art Center in the early 1990s
"that I'd be really sad if I couldn't see all that artwork."

"Then I realized that as a sculptor, I could do something
about it," she said.

She created tactile versions of eight of Kerns' paintings,
and then built a relief map of Crater Lake National Park and
the Fort Clatsop National Memorial that chronicles the
Oregon portion of the journey 200 years ago of explorers
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

Snyder, who wears a button that reads "T.A.B. - temporarily
able-bodied," started working on the Skinner Butte bronze
three years ago, supported by grants from the Lane Arts
Council, the city of Eugene and a tourism special projects
grant from Lane County.

It will be installed on a permanent pedestal, at a height
and angle that will also make it accessible to wheelchair
users.

SKINNER BUTTE SCULPTURE

City officials will dedicate a panoramic bas-relief of
Eugene from Skinner Butte to Spencer Butte. The art- work
provides a "tactile view" of the city for people with vision
impairments.

When: Noon Tuesday

Where: At the summit of Skinner Butte, in the public parking
area, reachable via Lincoln Street or East Third Avenue.

Information: City of Eugene Parks and Open Space, 682-4800

News Monday , February 21, 2005

NEWS

Guided by blind, they drive to their goal

Anurita Rathore

Ahmedabad, February 20: It was not an easy task for Dinesh
Behl to drive his car as his navigator was Sanjay Mistry, a
blind and deaf man of 27 from Khedbrahma. Behl had to keep
one eye on the road and another on Mistry?s hands to
understand sign language. ??But it was challenging and
exhilarating,?? says Behl, who participated in the 8th Blind
People Car Rally on Sunday.

Organised by the Blind People?s Association and Round Table,
the rally saw a record of 80 participants ? the highest
number in 10 years.

For Akhil Paul, Director of Sense International ? an
institute working with the hearing impaired and visually
challenged people ? ??the rally gave an opportunity for
people like Nirav Mehta to come into the limelight.??

Nirav Mehta is a 36-year-old visually challenged and hearing
impaired man. Having done his MCom in Advanced Accounting
and Auditing, he is working as a junior programmer in GEB,
Bharuch, now. Blind from birth, he lost his ability to hear
when he was 10.

??Participating in the rally has given me a chance to meet
new people and learn something new from them. It has given
me a kick,?? says Mehta, whose younger brother Rushikesh is
also visually challenged.

The participants were given a road map (written in Braille)
minutes before the competition began. The rally covered a
71-km route beginning from the Blind People?s Association
going through Shilaj, Himmatnagar highway, Thaltej, Sun
City, Sarkhej-Gandhinagar highway and back to BPA ? with 12
time-control points that each vehicle had to pass through,
ensuring they were on the right track. This year, no one was
misled or lost, says BPA Director Bhushan Punani.

Rahul, Koshali and Aadit Sanghani were navigated by
Khavadiya Mahesh, a visually challenged man who recently won
the first prize in singing at a disability competition show
held on January 2. ??I am glad I drove. I wanted to
experience their world,?? says Aadit Sanghani.

For the Shahs, who are in India from Nairobi for a holiday,
participating in the rally and being guided by a visually
challenged person was a unique experience.

Gaurang Shah and his wife Krishna, say: ??Heena Thakkar, 20,
navigated the way for us. Today, I realised how difficult
life can be without sight. Since we had to rely on her, we
realised how life would be if we couldn?t see and had to
depend on someone else to show us the way. But it was
amazing how she would realise if we went past the same road
twice, even if we didn?t!??

New Scientist

The touchy-feely side of telecoms
At the end of March Samsung will release a mobile phone with
a difference. Not only will it be able to send images and
streaming video, but the phone can vibrate in such a way
that you can add the sensation of a playful tickle to your
text message, or make the person on the other end of the
phone feel as if their handset has slapped them across the
face. Welcome to the world of haptics- the technology of
recreating touch and texture through artificial stimuli.
The most widespread use of haptics so far is in video
gaming, in the vibrating game pads and force-feedback
steering wheels that accompany Sony's PlayStation 2 and
Microsoft's Xbox. These devices give you a sense of how good
a virtual golfing shot was from the force feedback on the
joystick, or let you feel how close you are to being run off
the road in racing games.

But Samsung's phone is the first mass-market use of haptics.
When you send a text message you can add one of a number of
sensations from a menu. When the person reads the message,
"vibrotactile" motors in their phone are activated. These
are basically more complex versions of the motors that allow
many mobile phones to vibrate when ringing. The precise
frequency and amplitude of the vibrations generated by the
motors simulates the desired sensation. "I have been waiting
for this for a few years. It's a challenge to develop
systems that are low-cost and lightweight," says Ed Colgate,
a mechanical engineer who works on haptics at Northwestern
University in Chicago.

The haptic technology behind game pads and the Samsung
phones has been developed by Immersion of San Jose,
California, which is one of the leading companies in this
fast-growing field. From these simple beginnings, analysts
think the technology will have many applications, for
example, in haptic gloves and pads designed to give online
shoppers a feel for products. Imagine being able to feel the
quality of a cashmere sweater before you buy it, experience
the roadholding of a car or feel the finish of a piece of
furniture. "Physical involvement creates a real attachment
and is lacking in online interactions," says Colgate.

Just like graphics and sound, touch can be coded as digital
bits. They are sent in packets over the internet or a
cellphone network then reassembled or "rendered" in some
form at the other end. So why has it taken so long for the
technology to develop? "Haptics is fundamentally more
difficult over the internet than sound or vision," says
Colgate. This is partly because touch encompasses a wide
variety of physical factors including force, vibration,
temperature and texture, and unlike light or sound, it can
be sensed over the whole body.

But there are ways to simplify the problem. In 1996 three
researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
built a three-jointed robotic arm called the Phantom that
lets you experience the feeling of doing surgery. On the end
of the arm is a stylus that you grip like a pen, and as you
manipulate it, the forces in the arm mimic the sensation of
cutting through tendons or placing a catheter, for example.
The Phantom gives medical students experience of surgery
without putting patients at risk.

Another problem is that touch is interactive - you have to
press something to feel it. This two-way quality is
difficult to achieve over the internet because of delays
called latencies, which can mount up and disrupt the
interaction. Although a delay of more than 200 milliseconds
may be acceptable for holding a phone conversation or
watching video, touch needs a fairly immediate reaction to
be realistic, says Kenneth Salisbury of Stanford University,
California, one of the inventors of the Phantom.

For haptics to reach their full potential, the technology
also has to be able to convey a wide range of tactile
sensations. Sile O'Modhrain of Media Lab Europe in Dublin,
Ireland, says that "pre-packaged" haptics have barely
scratched the surface. For example, a student at MIT has
built a phone that can transmit a squeeze of varying
strength. Accelerometers in the phone measure the strength
and speed of the squeeze and reproduce the effect at the
other end of the line, making it feel a bit like holding
hands. Much of the technology needed to achieve such effects
already exists, O'Modhrain says.

O'Modhrain has a personal interest in haptics: she happens
to be blind. A touch-based internet could be a real boon,
but efforts so far have not been impressive. They have
concentrated on reproducing the raised outline of shapes
such as graphs and pie charts. But as Curtis Chang of the
Iowa-based National Federation of the Blind in Computer
Science points out: "If you grew up blind, they don't mean
anything to you."

Successful vision

ViewPlus sees big potential in adding ink to embosser that
prints for the blind

By BENNETT HALL
Gazette-Times business editor

With barely a week to go before the company's new product is
scheduled to ship, the manufacturing department is smack in
the middle of moving.

The old fabrication area is already cleared out, but the new
one is still being set up. Employees are ferrying parts and
equipment from one building to another on handcarts, and
somebody dropped one of the finished units, cracking the
housing.

Not that anyone seems concerned about all this chaos ?
that's just the price of success for ViewPlus Technologies.

In less than two years, the company has outgrown its
7,000-square-foot building in the Airport Industrial Park
and recently leased an additional 1,800 square feet next
door. In the coming months, ViewPlus expects to lease
additional pieces of the mostly vacant 15,000-square-foot
structure.

"We reckon that, over the course of the next year, we will
fill that up," said company founder John Gardner, a former
Oregon State University physics professor who lost his sight
from complications following surgery in 1988.

Incorporated in 1999, the Corvallis company makes a line of
computer printers for blind people. Like other printers for
the visually impaired, the ViewPlus Embosser prints text in
Braille characters using raised dots. Unlike most, however,
it can also produce tactile versions of graphic images, from
maps to diagrams to drawings that mimic visual shading with
seven levels of depth.

The ViewPlus line has been a hit with schools, universities
and other institutional customers in the United States and
abroad. From three employees and $68,000 in sales that first
year, the company grew to 15 employees and $900,000 in sales
in 2003, when it moved from incubator space in the Business
Enterprise Center to its current location. Today ViewPlus
has 30 employees, and it's projecting $2.5 million in sales
for 2005.

One reason for that optimism is the company's latest
innovation, scheduled to start shipping next Monday.

The Pro Ink Attachment ? PIA, for short ? is an add-on that
works with the ViewPlus Pro Embosser, the company's
top-of-the-line model. Using twin Hewlett-Packard inkjet
printheads, the PIA produces a single-color visual
equivalent of the raised-dot image created by the embosser.

The Pro Ink Attachment will sell for $3,995. The ViewPlus
Pro Embosser sells for $9,750. While those prices are beyond
the reach of most individuals, the low-volume, high-margin
assistive technology market targets institutions, which can
afford to invest in the spendy hardware.

Using ViewPlus software that works with the near-universal
Windows computer operating system, the PIA can be set up to
overprint large text letters on top of individual Braille
characters, a useful aid in teaching Braille to people with
low or failing vision.

It can also print a grayscale image directly over an
embossed graphic or print lines of text between lines of
Braille. That capability opens up a much broader potential
application: giving sighted teachers a visual analog to what
their blind students are reading or writing in Braille.

"I think that's going to be the lion's share of our sales,"
said Rob Sanders, the company's bright-eyed young director
of sales and marketing. "Blind students are mainstreamed
more and more in this country ? you'll have one blind
student in a regular classroom."

In elementary, secondary and university classrooms across
America, teachers with no specialized training often
struggle to communicate effectively with blind students.
Combining printing with embossing can help bridge that gap,
and ViewPlus is betting the PIA will fill that niche in the
marketplace.

"It serves a need in this industry that's never really been
properly served," Sanders said.

ViewPlus hopes to sell 100 to 200 PIAs this year.

"That sounds like a small number, but in the Braille market,
that's huge," Sanders said.

Huge is right ? ViewPlus has sold just under 200 Pro
Embossers to date.

But the PIA, which ViewPlus has been demonstrating at
assistive technology expos, is already generating a fair
amount of buzz, with $50,000 in orders booked in advance of
next week's target launch date. Sanders is hoping the add-on
will prove so popular it will boost sales of the embosser.

"I think this will sell a lot more Pros," he said. "No one
solves the ink and Braille problem like we do, and that's
the biggest problem out there."

If Sanders is right, Gardner says, the rapid growth of
ViewPlus can continue.

"As the company's revenues grow, we can expand, put more
marketing people in the field and sell more products," he
said. "I wouldn't be surprised if this time next year we
have 50 employees."

Bennett Hall is the business editor for the Gazette-Times.
He can be reached at 758-9529 or bennett.hall@xxxxxxxx

Posted on Wed, Feb. 23, 2005

Small hands money

Auctions for children's art prove to be
profitable fund-raisers

By ANN SPIVAK

The Kansas City Star

Sara Hodes thought she was gazing at an Impressionist
painting at an art auction. But a closer look
revealed hundreds of tiny children's
fingerprints, including her son's, filling the canvas
to create a church and sky.

"I just couldn't resist it," said
Hodes, who paid $2,000 for the small painting after a
bidding war with other parents
at the recent auction for Visitation School in Kansas City.

"I didn't go to the auction intending
to do this, but that painting was
so special,&rdquo; she said.
&ldquo;It's one of my most precious
keepsakes. It hangs in the kitchen, and
my son, Billy, knows
exactly where his fingerprints are
&mdash; next to the bell tower and over
near the sky.&rdquo;

Whether it's a painting with
fingerprints, a ceramic vase with hand prints or
self-portraits on tiles around a mirror, children's
artwork is the hottest thing going as schools and
other children's organizations look for new
ways to raise money at their annual
fund-raisers.

Across the Kansas City area, art
teachers at schools and organizations such as
Mattie Rhodes and Accessible Arts make it a
priority to help students create pieces that they hope will
bring hundreds, if not thousands, of
dollars back to the organizations.

Diane Blanck, who headed the Visitation
auction, knows the value of kids' art. This school year
she had every grade working on
projects. &ldquo;We've done this for a long time, but there
are
definitely more this year because it's
what all the parents want,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;The
reasoning is that parents want things
that are created by their own children.&rdquo;

A second but larger painting of the
church made by second-graders, Blanck said, went for more
than $5,000. A third painting of the
same church went for about $2,000. The entire auction
raised about $100,000, and about 15
percent of that was from kids' artworks.

And would you pay $3,200 for a mirror
that cost about $75 to make? Parents at Highlawn
Montessori School in Prairie Village
did at their annual auction earlier this month.

&ldquo;We got on a roll,&rdquo; said
Julana Harper-Sachs, an auction co-chairwoman, adding
that the art from the live auction
brought in about $7,000, or a fifth of the live auction
total.

&ldquo;Several couples went in together
and donated the mirror back to the classroom,&rdquo;
she said. &ldquo;It's a nice tribute,
and everyone gets to enjoy it.&rdquo;

While kindergartners stick to the
basics, such as handprints and painting, older students are
making silk scarves, learning to draw
Chinese letters on placemats and using tiles to turn
bowling balls into garden gazing balls.

&ldquo;This stuff goes for big
money,&rdquo; said Susan Gold, owner of the Mosaic Shop in
Kansas City. About twice a week, she's
helping schools with their projects. The past two years,
she has seen projects for auctions
about double, she said.

&ldquo;It's really unbelievable,&rdquo;
Gold said. &ldquo;One woman working on a mirror was
quite the entrepreneur. She picked out
the four kids whose parents she thought would bid the
most, and put their children's tiles at
the top.&rdquo;

Two trains of thought dominate this new
niche of fund-raising &mdash; either to help children
create artwork that pulls at parents'
heartstrings, such as a quilt where each child in the class
decorates a square and signs it; or to
have students create pieces that are functional and look
professional, such as a set of holiday
coffee mugs.

&ldquo;You want someone to say,
&lsquo;Oh, that's a cool plate,' or &lsquo;Isn't that a
pretty
vase?' &rdquo; said Sara Thompson,
owner of Ceramic Café in Leawood. &ldquo;You don't want
them to say, &lsquo;Oh, that's kid
art.' &rdquo;

The flipside is the mask that Donna and
Bill Byers recently bought for $50 from the Accessible
Arts auction. They were just looking
around at all the pieces for sale when they saw a clay mask
created by a young man who has been
blind since birth.

&ldquo;We both got tears in our
eyes,&rdquo; Donna Byers said. &ldquo;To think that someone
who had never physically seen a face
created this lovely piece was just amazing to us. It tugged
at our hearts.&rdquo;

Gene Bouldin, who started the Kid's Art
Project in Seattle two years ago, said he's overwhelmed
with requests to turn children's art
pieces into posters and collages for auctions. &ldquo;It's
auction season right now, and I'm
swamped,&rdquo; he said, adding that he'll create a collage
for about $180 that parents then turn
around and spend thousands on at an auction.

The beauty of this type of fund-raising
is that it's a perfect example of capitalism at work,
Bouldin said. The cost to produce
children's art is relatively low (free labor, help from
parents
and teachers and usually donated items
or supplies at a discount); and the product sells for
often 20 times its cost.

&ldquo;You'll get a group of 20
families at an auction trying to outbid each other,&rdquo;
Bouldin
said. &ldquo;Even if only two or three
families really want it, they'll bid the price up. And of
course it's all for charity; it has
nothing to do with the value of the art.&rdquo;

Chuck Robinson with Maverick Charity
Auctions was the auctioneer at the Highlawn Montessori
auction. He said it's amazing &ldquo;to
be up there and witnessing this.&rdquo;

&ldquo;I remember a bug cabinet, a
cabinet you put little jars of bugs in, that went for $5,500
because kids made it,&rdquo; Robinson
said. &ldquo;Or I'll get two parents bidding whose kids'
names are side by side on a piece of
art, and there's no stopping them.&rdquo;

He said the items made by younger
students, say preschool through third grade, bring in the
biggest bucks. &ldquo;Older kid stuff,
it's just not so cute anymore,&rdquo; he said.

At Mattie Rhodes, art center director
Jenny Mendez is gearing up for the annual children's art
exhibit March 4, which features mostly
paintings and collages created by children in the
after-school program.

Not only will their work be for sale,
but this year Mendez decided to set a few pieces aside for a
live auction. &ldquo;Last year, we
raised $2,000,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;This year, we're
hoping to double that.&rdquo;

And what do the children get out of all
this? &ldquo;The children take great pride in raising funds
for their school,&rdquo; Blanck said.
&ldquo;The key, key message I think is to teach kids early
to do their share.&rdquo;

Mendez agreed. &ldquo;The whole focus
is teaching kids to give back and the importance of
that.&rdquo;

Kit Bardwell, program director at
Accessible Arts, a Kansas City agency that champions the
arts
for children with disabilities, said
this was the first time the agency added children's art to
its
annual auction. Two guitars, decorated
by low-vision students, sold for $100 each. And half of
that money went back to the students,
who are planning a field trip with their profits.

&ldquo;One of my big soap boxes is that
it's the process that's important, not the end
product,&rdquo; Bardwell said, adding
that a child's attachment to a piece of artwork is much
less than you might think.

&ldquo;Everyone pushes the end product,
even the art teachers, but my belief is that it's the
process that's important to the
children,&rdquo; Bardwell said. &ldquo;For example, if they
make
a pot on the wheel, they're not begging
me to glaze them and take them home. They just want
to throw the next piece of clay on the
wheel and get started again.&rdquo;

Patty Baker, art teacher at Briarwood
Elementary in Prairie Village, worked with older students
on projects for the auction. A framed
tapestry made out of old T-shirt pieces by fourth-graders
fetched $500 at the recent auction, and
the large serving bowl with leaf imprints sold for $450.

&ldquo;I don't see the harm in
it,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;Kids don't seem to mind helping
out
their school. When the bowl sold, and
they were asked to make two more bowls because other
parents wanted them, they were excited
that people valued what they did.&rdquo;

Her criteria is that the project has to
be something all the kids can participate in, no matter what
their skill level, and that together
they can create one piece of art. &ldquo;I really want this
to
be art,&rdquo; Baker said.

Bardwell added that it's refreshing to
go to an art auction and be able to afford a piece.
&ldquo;People may not be able to afford
a $5,000 or $10,000 painting, but if the opening bid on
a children's piece is $20 or $50, they
can support the organization in that way.&rdquo;

To reach Ann Spivak, Kansas City People
editor, call (816) 234-4391 or send e-mail to
aspivak@xxxxxxxxxxx

Top 10 kid art auction items

? Mosaic and tile mirrors

? Ceramic platters

? Dishes, mugs

? Benches and tables

? Pillows

? Steppingstones

? Birdbaths

? Original paintings

? Wine racks

? Tables with logos

Source: Mosaic Shop, Ceramic Cafe

Kid art auctions

Check with your school or social
service agency, or call to inquire about these upcoming
auctions:

? Saturday: Global Montessori to
benefit the school, (816) 561-4533

? Saturday: Corinth Elementary to
benefit the school, (913) 901-0110

? March 4: Mattie Rhodes Children's Art
Auction and Sale to benefit children's art programs,
(816) 221-2349

? April 2: St. Elizabeth School to
benefit the school, (816) 300-0808

? April 2: St. Peter's School to
benefit the school, (816) 523-4899

? April 16: Barstow School to benefit
the school, (816) 277-0410

[accessibleimage] Articles, Sculpture, ralley, haptics, ViewPlus, auction

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