[accessibleimage] Duck tape art, ArtBreak, exhibitions,Blind With Camera project

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ARTBREAK kicks off with something new
Each hands-on activity center features a professional artist providing demonstrations of their work. Among this year's artists are Jane Heggen, who's using papier-mache sculptures to demonstrate the life cycle of a butterfly; Jerry Davenport, who's designing a sculpture of "Grandpa's Head" based on Disney's "Meet The Robinsons"; and blind artist John Bramblitt, who demonstrates "Paint by Touch" using mixed textures of paint to distinguish colors 
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070424/NEWS01/704240332/1002/NEWS

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Artist focuses on Holocaust survivors
"I wanted future generations to know what the survivors looked like," Sutz says, noting that "even blind people can touch them" with these masks. Understanding that these survivors were by this time senior citizens gave Sutz "a deeper incentive and more urgency to do this." 
http://www.scrippsnews.net/node/21863


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Artbreak
The ArtBreak Festival and the Very Special Arts Festival have merged to celebrate the artistic abilities of people who are mentally or physically disabled. This year’s festival partners with the Louisiana Association for the Blind to demonstrate how artists see by touch or feel. Throughout the festival, students and families will look at art through the eyes of those who do not see.
Professional Artist John Bramblitt is a guest professional artist from Dallas, Texas, who teaches how to mix texture into paints in order to distinguish colors; then he shows how an artist discovers the borders of the canvas and spatial relationships among the images.
Sculptor Stephen Soffer will introduce students and families to seeing by touching. Students will wear blindfolds while they explore a series of large and small sculptural artworks created by Stephen.
Alicia Smith will lead students and families through a blindfolded exercise that begins with an “unseen” exploration of found objects. Artists will be able to select from a collection of small objects that they will put together into a sculpture. Alicia will help the young artists to assemble their sculpture, then, using touch only, they will add the sculpture to others that have been previously created and placed in the large shadow box. 
http://shreveport.blogspot.com/2007/04/artbreak-displays-world-of-student-art.html


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Second Sight, a popular BBC detective series about a detective feverishly attempting to solve a murder after learning that he is going blind 
http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/british%20tv%20series%20may%20become%20us%20movie_1029571


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The art of living
http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=235664
Artists overcome disability but often fail to shed the tag
Mention Mexican painter Frieda Kahlo and what come to mind are her intense art and beauty. Few recall that she spent many years in bed-crippled by the multiple fractures in her back. Similarly, not many know that famous Bengali painter Binod Bihari Mukherjee—known for his legendary murals in Shantiniketan—created his entire body of work after he lost his sight in an eye operation as a child.
They were fortunate. They were seen as artists and not branded as ‘disabled artists’. Nor did their works have to carry a similar prefix. But the participants of Blind With Camera project are not that fortunate. They have failed to shake off the ‘blind photographer’ tag. Same goes for Girish Mistry, who is hailed as “wheelchair-bound lens guru”.
“One way to look at these artists would be as people who have conquered their disabilities. However, NGOs and the art community—both of which are nascent in India—have not accepted their work as a sub-genre,” says Tina Chatterjee, director of Special Assignment for Concern India. “Perhaps,” she reasons, “it’s because disability is a double-edged sword. We are always conscious of avoiding the trap of being condescending.”
Photographer Partho Bhowmick agrees. “The work of the visually impaired is distinct from the way others approach photography and should be treated as a sub-genre. The on-going exhibition at Zenzi displaying their works has some surprising frames,” says Bhowmick, who headed the Blind With Camera project. He was inspired by Paris-based visually-challenged photographer Evgan Bavcar to take up the project.
The success story of Mistry, dean of Shari Academy of Photography and Digital Painting, is another instance of passion for art overcoming disability. Mistry was paralysed from the waist down in 1990. “I used to spend 15 to 18 hours a day working as a photographer. When I lost my mobility, my clients ignored me,” he recalls. But for him, the only way to live life was by continuing his work. That resulted in the photography institute and later several exhibitions of his works. Today, Mistry doesn’t see his disability as a hindrance and hates to be labelled.
Aspiring artist Sujit Chaurasia, born blind, composed photographs with the help of sound and the result was remarkable. Most of his fellow participants of Blind With Camera project followed the same method. Another participant Praveen Bhonsale, who lost his sight when in Class VI, says, “The camera is more than a toy for me. It helps me connect with the visual world.” He wants to pursue photography as an art form.
To promote works of artists like Bhonsale and Chaurasia, Chatterjee feels, “A special market needs to be created for those with disabilities. That’s possible only if we tap talents from across the country, not just metros.” 


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Visual artists triumph over lack of sight
It's impressive enough when anyone refines his or her talent enough to exhibit, but especially impressive when the visual artist is blind.
Last Wednesday, two visually impaired artists showed their work at the Portsmouth Public Library in a special exhibit sponsored by the New Hampshire Association for the Blind. It's a shame the display was up for only a few hours on a single day. Inspiration isn't always easy to come by and these two artists had plenty to share.
Vincente Paratore is blind, save for about 2 percent sight in his left eye. Painting is his passion, so he found ways to keep going without sight. He uses only four colors and has a specially designed light box to mix them. Each tube of acrylic paint has a wooden clothespin clipped on the bottom. He puts the letter of the color on each tube, raised, so that he can feel the letter to identify the color. Then, he cuts inside the shapes of the clay that he has painted around.
"I can see everything in my head," Paratore told the Herald "I have spent 22 years without vision and colors. I can see even better now, in my head and mind."
Anna Krebs, Paratore's co-exhibitor, lost most of her eyesight 6½ years ago. She used to work as an artisan selling work to regional vendors and continues to make quilts, both hand sewn and machine sewn, as well as dolls, fake candies and Christmas ornaments. All of the dolls Krebs makes have a little white cane, symbolic of the blind person.
"Thanks to the New Hampshire Association of the Blind," Krebs said, " I found new ways of doing things. I wasn't sure I could keep sewing, but I was wrong. I still do and it's all done with love." 
http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070514/OPINION01/705140329/-1/NEWS


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Special art for the blind
Hoboken students share audio/tactile creativity with visually-impaired students 
http://www.hudsonreporter.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18361071&BRD=1291&PAG=461&dept_id=523585&rfi=6
To bring art to a segment of the community that might not commonly experience it, a group of upperclassman from the Hoboken Charter School created an audio exhibit for visually-impaired students at St. Joseph's School for the Blind in Jersey City in which touch, sound, and smell were emphasized.
The idea for the project originated with Charter's art teacher Loren Abbate, who has worked with eight seniors and one junior since November of 2006 to create the exhibit.
The exhibit includes thick thread hanging overhead and a bubble-wrapped floor that students walk across before feeling their way along a multi-dimensional wall consisting of an array of fabrics, wires, plastics, and even scented oils.
In addition to giving students at St. Joseph's a chance to experience art in a creative fashion, the charter school students also learned about the different degrees of blindness, the physiological and psychological sources of it, and the challenges visually impaired individuals face in society.
"As a service-learning school, our goal was to reach out to others in our community and give the experience of art to a population that's challenged," said Abbate. "At the same time, I think my students became more appreciative of the abilities they possess in the process." She said the materials used in the exhibit were collected through student-led field trips around Hoboken. 

excerpt video interview at link
http://www.kmeg14.com/news/local/7572272.html?skipthumb=Y
"People You Should Know" - Orange City Duct Tape Artist
Each week we introduce you to someone we think you should know, and this week you'll meet someone who has a creative mind and spirit, here's KMEG 14’s Mark Hall with this weeks “Person You Should Know.”
This week we sat down with a young man who some say has a unique hobby, others say a unique talent, either way he's unique.
David Wassenaar is an artist at work. But he’s not holding a paint brush, he uses duct tape. David has been ripping and tearing since he was 12, his first project was a 15 pound ball.

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