[accessibleimage] John Bramblitt artist

Longview News Journal, Texas
Sunday, August 28, 2005

Blind painter turns loss into art and pain into inspiration

By JAMES DRAPER

John Bramblitt is a blind painter.

Some people might find this term paradoxical. But any irony is lost on the 34-year-old.

"I've got a constant stream of images in my mind - that doesn't change with losing your vision," said the self-taught Denton resident.

The University of North Texas senior opens "Sightless Works," a month-long exhibit of his paintings, at the Marshall Visual Arts Center on Monday.

"When someone is visually impaired, people don't think about their life being as bright, being as colorful," he said, his blue eyes hidden behind a pair of sleek, black glasses during an interview at his apartment studio in late July. But, "When I'm painting, I'm enveloped in the color," Bramblitt said. "Colors are emotion, are energy. ... I want to make the emotions hit you over the head."

Like Beethoven, who lost his hearing but continued composing, Bramblitt wasn't born blind. Crippling seizures have plagued Bramblitt since age four. He long ago learned to live with the temporary blurred vision following each attack, but he never expected to go blind. He lost his sight at age 30 and can now barely perceive changes in light; his senses end at the tip of his red and white cane.

Bramblitt turns loss into art and pain into inspiration. He still suffers from seizures, and his fiery-red "Focal Seizure" attempts to capture the helplessness of his condition and the desperation of his first years without sight: An icy blue eye stares from the maelstrom of a red and pink face while tiny, tormented faces scream within the shattered pupil. And "Storm," another depiction of seizures, imposes twisting thunderbolts onto a flaming orange landscape in a violent metaphor of his grand mal seizures.

"Whenever you're going to have a big seizure, it's almost like your body feels the way it does when a storm is about to roll in," he explained in a soft voice and slight stutter. "Over the years, that damage just kept piling up," said the English major, who maintains a 4.0 GPA (assisted by speaking computer programs) and takes notes for disabled peers.

While several of Bramblitt's pieces revolve around his trials, his latest works are "brighter and brighter," he said, and perhaps suggest maturation.

"Pops Carter" is a serene portrait of a well-known Denton musician; "Western Hirajuku" depicts a poet friend in dark purple and blue to suggest her passionate feelings. Both subjects allowed him to explore their faces with his fingers.

And in "Rodeo" he slathered the paint on thickly to bring out the roughness of the dirty arena and crazed bull he remembers seeing as a child.

When UNT art professor Jerry Austin viewed Bramblitt's exhibit, he never guessed the creator was blind.

Austin, chairman of the school's division of studio art, admires the tactile dimension of works like "Rodeo" and complimented the artist's innate grasp of hues, perspective and depth. "All of those dimensions that a visual artist, a sighted person, struggles with - I can only imagine the difficulty that an unsighted person has," Austin said.

Bramblitt isn't the only blind painter in Texas. Others include Joe Harris of Houston, and Lisa Fittipaldi of San Antonio, both legally blind, said Celia Hughes, executive director of VSA (Vision, Strength and Access) Arts of Texas, part of the educational network of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Internationally, 500 to 600 blind or visually-impaired artists, mostly American, enter the American Printing House for the Blind's annual InSights art competition, said Roberta Williams, public relations and special projecs manager for the Louisville, Ky.-based non-profit organization. APH has created educational, workplace and independent-living products and services for the visually impaired since 1858. Each year, the 14-year-old InSights contest displays the work of about 80 entrants, adult and children.

Bramblitt uses a method almost like paint-by-number but layered with complexity, creating what he calls "a mental map." Bramblitt emphasizes color but does not disregard form.

First, he outlines the piece with black fabric paint. This process creates delicate, raised lines for his fingers to follow so he knows the boundaries to paint in, whether they're backgrounds or details. Then, gripping a brush or paint knife, he anchors his remaining digits on the canvas and sets to work filling in the quadrants. (Bramblitt covers up these raised lines with primer to leave no trace of his craft.)

He works exclusively in oil paints because each color has a different feeling to the touch, he said. White is thick and gritty, like toothpaste, he explained, while black is oily and runny. The process is painstaking, but Bramblitt says it imprints each element onto his mind's eye - "I can see the colors like they're still wet."

Austin said Bramblitt's bold, raw use of color shows promise, even if the untrained artist is in the early stages of development compared to other students. Some paintings are too simplified and subdued, he added, but with time and teaching his work might evolve.

"When I first started painting, it was an act of defiance" at God's unfairness, Bramblitt said. But the art helped him come to terms with his blindness. "The visual memories I have now are because I've been exercising them."

The painter attributes his art and life skills to training received from the Texas Commission for the Blind, where instructors emphasized concentration and memorization. Just as Bramblitt calculates every brushstroke, he counts his steps and tunes his ears to oncoming traffic or the bustle of a crowded building, enabling him to walk alone to his favorite bar or hangout whenever he chooses.

Bramblitt hopes his paintings will help other blind people experience art, a world that usually excludes them.

"Whenever I look at other people's art, I think it's interesting that I can feel the brush strokes or the marks that the painting knife left...all these little imperfections," he said. "I'm wanting to paint a lot more textural pieces for the visually-impaired."

Pam Atchison, executive director of the Shreveport Regional Arts Council, was so surprised by the technique and "insight" of the paintings that she invited Bramblitt to participate in the 21st annual ArtBreak in Shreveport last spring.

Leading a three-day art class, he blindfolded 1,500 people, mostly children, to help them experience art as he does, Atchison said. The point was to demonstrate that creativity knows no bounds, she said.

"Imagination and creativity and inner vision will come forward one way or another," she said. "There was no sense of his blindness being a challenge or a disability in any way. It didn't manifest itself in his imagination, his technique, his skill as an artist. He has developed some other sixth sense of sight."

"Working in this two-dimensional realm has really helped me in this three-dimensional world," said Bramblitt. Art helps him to enlarge his environment in ways that once seemed impossible.

People with impairments are constantly fighting stereotypes of their limitations, Bramblitt said. Employers tend to pay attention to the disability, not the person, he said.

"People rely so much on what they see," he said. "The blind community is isolated and insulated. One of my greatest fairs is being trapped and being labeled."

*****

If you go

- What: John Bramblitt "Sightless Works" art exhibit.

- When: Monday through Sept. 29 at 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday.

- Where: Marshall Visual Arts Center, 208 E. Burleson, Marshall.

- Tickets: Free. Call (903) 938-9860. 



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