[accessibleimage] forgery, photographer, workshop,JIM FRUCHTERMAN Fellow the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Hi,
Mixed articles. One, is perhaps a bit off subject but thought would be of interest, Jim Fruchterman, Benetech, Bookshare.org, has been named Fellow of the MacArthur Foundation.

Regards,
Lisa


links
http://www.thepasty.com/news/?p=257
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-worich184896860sep18,0,985477.story?coll=ny-worldnews-print
http://www.leamingtonspatoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=691&ArticleID=1776339
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/19/GENIUS.TMP
http://www.ohio.com/mld/beaconjournal/news/state/15557153.htm
articles
Blind man claims Hitler paintings are fake
He continued: “Being blind I got somebody to write the signatures from the Jeffery’s paintings on a bit of paper, with my hand gently leaning over theirs. I then got them to write the signatures from paintings that were original and even using this basic technique the differences were immediately apparent.”

excerpt
M. Richard, blind photographer, 58
LOS ANGELES - Michael Richard, a rock musician and amateur photographer who became legally blind four years ago but continued performing and taking photographs that he exhibited around the country, has died. He was 58.

As a blind artist, he felt "driven" to help other disabled people "state their artistic case on their own terms and on a level playing field," he wrote in a recent statement about his work.

Richard adjusted to his condition with the help of a photography class he took at the Braille Institute in Los Angeles.

The class was taught by a professional magazine photographer who offered tips on what model of camera to use, places to have film developed and the like. Richard was inspired.

He began exhibiting his photographs at centers for the blind, optometry schools and art mu- seums. More recently he began exhibiting in shows at galleries.


extract
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/15545830.htm
He was known for his black-and-white images of buildings and other urban sights shot at angles that turned them into tactile, abstract forms. He was also a professional musician who played guitar and sang, with a compact disc, "Wires of the Acropolis" on Cool Records, to his credit. He played guitar for television music, videos and radio advertisements. On stage, he played back-up guitar for performers including Little Richard and The Coasters. -- los angeles times
article

Art-Sense workshop at art gallery and museum
Leamington Spa Art Gallery and Museum is holding a free one-day workshop for blind or visually-impaired adults next Friday.
Artist Kuldeep Malhi will lead the Art-Sense workshop where participants will be encouraged to explore their own ideas and explore the medium of clay by hand, producing works of different sizes and designs.

article
JIM FRUCHTERMAN

Jim Fruchterman, 47, showed his idiosyncratic bent when he dropped out of a Stanford Ph.D. program in 1981 to join a company trying to build rockets for private space flight. On an island off the coast of Texas, he watched his 60-foot long, liquid oxygen-fueled prototype explode on the launch pad in a gigantic ball of flame. So much for his rocket career.

He returned to Silicon Valley, and using ideas he developed as an undergrad at Cal Tech, built a reading machine that scanned books for blind people -- transforming the words into audio with voice-synthesizing software, or into a tactile device that formed braille letters on a platform of moving plastic pins. In 2000, he sold the nonprofit company that made the devices and used the money he made to find other ways of helping people.

"Techies love technology and solving problems, and social problems are often the coolest ones,'' he said. "They just don't make you any money.''

Fruchterman calls the work "social entrepreneurship" and created a new nonprofit, the Benetech Initiative, to carry out the vision. His first project: a secure computer database to allow social activists to document human rights abuses. Called Martus (Greek for witness), it has been used in Guatemala to sift through 80 million documents detailing homicides and disappearances during the country's 36-year civil war.

"The whole idea is to capture the raw material of human rights -- the stories, the testimony, the eye-witness statements,'' he said. "This is data gathered at great expense, and sometimes at great human cost.''

Fruchterman has other projects in development as well, such as adapting Defense Department technology to make inexpensive land mine detectors available to poor countries.

"They work like a standard metal detector, but detect the actual explosives in the mine instead,'' he explained.

The genius grant was a pleasant surprise, and Fruchterman is quietly considering his new options. "It used to be that, if I was thinking of going to India, I'd wonder if the trip really made sense. But now, if I feel like visiting the Indian Association for the Blind, I'm going to do it,'' he said.


article

MEMBER EXCHANGE: Artist measures life by what he has been given
DEBBI SNOOK
The Plain Dealer

CLEVELAND - Every morning, Chappelle Letman prays in the narrow alley behind the apartment building in his Old Brooklyn neighborhood. Crouching in the tight space, he thanks the Creator for the gifts he's been given and for the gifts now gone.

If it's summer, Letman pulls up a chair to linger and meditate. In winter, he wraps his hands around a mug of tea.

"And the rain," he says in a Barry White croon, "I love the rain."

Letman used to be outdoors a lot - bricklaying for a living or hunting, fishing and hiking for fun. In his 55 years, he's moved through California, over to Pennsylvania, up to Alaska.

He'll never forget the wash of sunset colors over the rooftops of his hometown, New York City, or across the glaciers in the Arctic Circle. He remembers how, as an oil painter, he captured that glamour on canvas.

When Letman finishes his prayers, he returns to his apartment, barely touching his fingers against the wall. In 1992, Letman lost his sight to glaucoma. Two days later, he lost his mother.

Letman studied life skills at agencies for the blind and took a job folding laundry. Then art called him back, big time, full time.

It happened at a show by Bruce Biro, a Cleveland sculptor who made stone carvings that were tubular, curvaceously intertwined and smooth. Letman ran his hands over every inch of them. They had a rhythm, a resonance that enthralled him.

He thanked Biro for allowing his work to be touched.

"I hugged a piece," he said.

Today, Letman makes his own sculptures in the dining room that serves as his studio. On a table over a carpet of canvas, he chisels limestone, marble and alabaster in bursts of movement, followed by a quick rub with his fingers to feel what he's done. It's not unlike the cadence of his infectious musical laughter and the way he pauses to hear the other person respond.

Sculptors often sketch a piece before picking up a tool, but Letman says he draws his mentally and in color. He tries not to keep too many ideas in mind at once, hoping to preserve his focus. Sometimes it works.

"Sometimes I have so many ideas I get headaches," he says.

He might take a nap to restore himself. Or think back to what he smelled or heard when he got his original idea.

Many of Letman's sculptures are abstracts with loops and openings, as if something natural has passed through them. Or as if they are inviting something to pass through them. Their eyes and hearts seem wide open. Their skins can be as rough as bark or as smooth as a deer's belly. It's as if all of nature's forces have followed him indoors.

Letman says he is grateful to his ancestors and to a network of friends in the art world: teachers at the Cleveland Institute of Art, life instructors at the Cleveland Sight Center, fellow artists who help him choose stones or go to art shows. He says he trusts his hands to tell him if he reached his goal, but he also has asked fellow artists to critique his work.

Truth tellers, he calls them.

Some people buy his work or help him ship his work out. He has sold to serious collectors, and next month one of his limestone studies will be part of a juried national show at Chicago's Guild for the Blind.

He knows that intellectual viewers might analyze it as a construction of positive and negative space.

Letman knows it better as a God-given gift.

"It's all positive," he says.


article

This is the West Country (UK)
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Church's heritage open day (adapted for the visually impaired) displays little seen treasures

CAPTION: Valerie Pitts with a magnificent lectern that was on show

HERITAGE open days are a growing national event held under the auspices of English Heritage and the Civic Trust, when buildings of special interest are open to the public free of charge.

The Parish Church of King Charles the Martyr was proud to be one of three buildings in Falmouth taking part and while entrance to the church is always free, there were displays of special interest which attracted many more visitors than usual.

White flower arrangements and special lighting effects to highlight the items on display gave the church an especially welcoming feel.

Certain items were of particular interest because they are usually kept in the bank and are not on show.

The silver Chalice and Paten, given by the Dowager Countess of Devonshire in 1663, and an early 18th century flagon being particularly noteworthy. Also the Alabaster Carving, which is over 600-years-old, by the Nottingham School of Alabaster Carvers and depicting the Flagellation of Christ.

Other displays of particular interest to visitors were the vestments worn by the clergy, and the various items used for communion services and baptisms. Also the coffin plates and flags relating to the Killigrew family.

The tour of the church was specially adapted this year for those who were visually impaired to coincide with the Cornwall Blind Association's 150th anniversary.

It was particularly interesting as those on the tour were allowed to handle and touch various items as well as hearing detailed descriptions.

There was also a tapestry demonstration, a DVD of the church tower and a Midday Music Recital by John Winter (organ), Michael White (tenor), Clem Lang (bass) and Hannah White (flautist).

Activities for children were organised throughout the day and the church coffee shop was open for drinks and home-made fare.


http://www.thisisthewestcountry.co.uk/display.var.918289.0.churchs_heritage_open_day_displays_little_seen_treasures.php


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