[accessibleimage] Mural a 'touchstone' for Cumberland youngsters

*http://hometownlife.com/LansingCity/News.asp?pageType=StoryCurrent&StoryArchiveID=96607&StoryID=12835&Section=Front%20Page&OnlineSection=Main%20News&SectionPubDate=Sunday,%20April%2010,%202005&RefDate=4/10/2005
Mural a 'touchstone' for Cumberland youngsters
*By CHRISTIE BLECK Staff Writer

LANSING - In one little corner of Cumberland Elementary School, 
youngsters who don't see as well as others do have a special place of 
their own.

Middle school students from the Center for Language, Culture and 
Communication Arts (CLCCA) recently created a tactile mural especially 
for visually impaired students at Cumberland.

Art teacher Wendy McWhorter successfully applied for a grant from the 
Lansing Education Advancement Foundation (LEAF) so her advanced art 
students at CLCCA could create the special mural.

"This was a service-learning project where kids did a whole project on 
what it would be like to be blind, to be in these kids' shoes," 
McWhorter said.

Through art, McWhorter said, the students made something that wasn't 
visual but tactile - that is, dealing with touch. In this way, she said, 
they became "feeling artists" as well as "seeing artists."

"They had to learn how to touch instead of see," McWhorter said. "They 
made decisions not on color but how they feel."

Bethanie LaValley, 13, worked on the mural, which includes flat marbles, 
foam cylinders, wooden stars and a furry animal outline. The bottom part 
of the mural is "manipulative" as youngsters can remove and replace the 
foam cylinders.

LaValley said the project was fun because she has a great-niece who is 
visually impaired, and others with the same challenge will learn about art.

How did LaValley and her fellow art students create the mural?

"Sometimes we closed our eyes, and felt over it once we were done," she 
said.

The Michigan State University Art Department woodshop donated the frame 
for the mural.

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