[accessibleimage] Using touch to 'see' color, teen creates applique items

Richmond Times Dispatch, Virginia
Saturday, October 15, 2005

Using touch to 'see' color, teen creates applique items

By SUSAN BOISSEAU

For more information on Tactile Colour, go to www.tactile.org

For more information on Kim Deneault's technique, go to www.raggedyreverseapplique.com 

How do you explain color to someone who has never seen it and never will?

Quiltmaker/designer Kim Deneault of Midlothian found a way and showed it to 
16-year-old Aashish Gilani, who was born blind and deaf.

Using sheets of textured vinyl called Tactile Colour, Deneault taught Aashish to 
distinguish colors by feel, then to make quilted pillow tops using an appliqué 
technique she created.

Tactile Colour is a system that enables all people to identify colors and 
interpret information by touch and is especially helpful for the visually 
impaired. It consists of 12 textured vinyl sheets, each representing a color. 
For example, red is soft and rubbery, purple has ridged dashes, and so on for 
the rest of the color wheel.

Tactile Colour was developed by Lois Lawrie, a screen printer and graphic 
designer in Canada who lost her sight in 1991 at age 30.

"This is one of the things that makes what we do worth doing," said Lawrie upon 
hearing about Aashish's accomplishments with her system.

. . .

Julia Reams has worked with Aashish, who came to the U.S. from India with his 
family when he was 3 months old, for more than 10 years as his interpreter, 
tutor and aide and had tried to explain colors to him.

"He's never seen color," she said. "How do you describe a color?"

Because she hadn't been able to help him relate to color, Reams was thrilled when 
Deneault told her about Tactile Colour. Working with it and the Raggedy Reverse 
Appliqué technique, Aashish now can connect to the seeing world a little 
better, Reams said.

"It just takes a little longer. Everything is done through his hands."

He thinks white is boring because it's smooth. His favorites are brown and 
green because those sheets are so heavily textured. Green feels like rough 
sandpaper. Wavy ridges undulate across brown.

So, Aashish chose brown and green for his first pillow top.

. . .

Sally Petit thought Deneault and Aashish would be good partners on the pillow 
top project.

Petit is Deneault's neighbor and a former teacher at Salem Church Middle 
School, where Aashish was enrolled for three years. He now attends L.C. Bird 
High.

"He's very smart," Petit said. "He picks things up."

Aashish communicates through American Sign Language, fingerspelling and his 
bright smile. He knows Braille and wears a Braille watch. With the help of 
hearing aids, Aashish can hear a horn honking or the bell ringing for class 
change at school.

"He is amazing," said Jeff McGee, who was principal at Salem Church when Aashish was a 
student there. Very smart and popular, too. "All the kids love him," added McGee, who is 
now principal at the new Matoaca Middle School.

. . .

Aided by a white cane, Aashish enters a classroom, ready to start on another 
pillow top.

He is clearly happy to get to work with Deneault.

Aashish takes a pair of spring-loaded blunt-tip scissors in his hands.

"What's your favorite shape?" he wants to know, using sign language.

"A circle," a visitor responds, and Aashish, with Deneault's assistance, cuts into a 
sheet of Tactile Colour in corrugated hot pink. He trims off the rough edges, "and he will 
find every one of them," Deneault says.

Once he has the shapes he wants, Aashish peels away the adhesive backing and 
places the shapes on poster board in a design that pleases him.

From then on, the process is like every other Raggedy Reverse Appliqué quilt block or pillow top made following Deneault's instructions: Trace the design on tracing paper, place the tracing paper over layers of fabric, then sew along the traced lines. 

At the sewing machine, Deneault moves her foot to the pedal. "Ready? 1, 2, 3," she 
says. "Slow or fast? Which do you want?"

"Fast," Aashish signs.

Aashish places his hands on hers, and Deneault stitches along the lines on the 
tracing paper. Before long, Aashish's foot is on hers.

Sewing completed, Aashish and Deneault cut through the layers to expose the different 
"colors" of fabric.

Deneault snips the fabric at intervals so it will fray in the washing machine, 
creating the raggedy in the pattern.

"There's no precision in this." Deneault says, "That's why it's good for kids."

Aashish's mother, Meenaz Gilani, thinks the new pillows on her sofa are lovely.
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"I have never seen anything like this before," she said. "I'm really proud."

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