[accessibleimage] home makeover, art teacher, art class

No sound on the video but there was a lot of tactile art in the home. Would have been nice with an description of what was done.
Home Makeover
link to video from program about the Lianes Family home makeover, family with visual and hearing impairments
http://abc.go.com/fsp/?channel=ExtremeMakeoverHomeEdition
http://abc.go.com/primetime/xtremehome/bios/328.html
When Vic Llanes of Bergenfield, New Jersey, started to lose his vision as a teenager, he accepted it. He didn't feel sorry for himself, but instead married his high school sweetheart, Maria. Together they started a family in the Philippines.

Gven was their first-born and was diagnosed as an infant with Aniridia, the same degenerative eye disease her father has. The family was told it was highly unusual and unlikely that it would happen again, so they got pregnant with Zeb. But during Maria's pregnancy, she contracted German measles. Zeb was born deaf and with severe allergies, and yet somehow the family pressed on. A few years later Vic learned he inadvertently passed on a genetic eye disorder to both of his daughters! Now almost everyone in the family is legally blind, including Isabel, Vic's aging mother.

Vic and Maria immigrated to America in 1997 in search of better doctors and a better education for their ailing children. Although this loving family continues to comfort each other, their own home does not comfort them! The noise from the street mixes up their only remaining senses and is distracting to those who are losing their sight. Their home is also very dark with little light coming in. Since the girls can still see light, colors and brightness, adding plenty of windows, skylights and light fixtures would help all who suffer from the disease. Zeb, who is deaf, also struggles with allergies, so this family cannot have any carpet in their house that otherwise might help soundproof it for those going blind!

Although blind, Vic doesn't let that stop him from helping others. He sends books in Braille to children all over the world and, amazingly, does the repair work around the house and most of the cooking for the family!

The Extreme Makeover: Home Edition design team travels to Bergenfield to build a brand new renovated home for this deserving family. In order to better meet the Llanes family's unique needs, Academy Award-winning actress Marlee Matlin will serve as Team Leader.
article
http://www.herald-dispatch.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060520/NEWS01/605200328/1001/NEWS
Teacher helps to bring art to visually impaired student

The Herald-Dispatch
May 20, 2006

HUNTINGTON -- Fifth-grader Sarah Metz carefully molded clay into the shape of leaves Friday during her art class at Nichols Elementary. She first shaped the pieces, and then used her fingernail to give them texture. After choosing a shade of green, Metz painted her leaves.

Sarah Metz, 11, has been blind since birth. With her long, blond hair, petite body and bubbling personality, Metz once formed a challenge for art teacher Marisa Main. Main had only been a full-time teacher in the county for two years, and she had no prior experience with teaching art to a blind student.

"The most important thing wasn't just figuring out a way to teach Sarah art. It was coming up with a way of maintaining the integrity of the curriculum," Main said.

Two years later, the relationship Main has with Metz has motivated the art teacher to go beyond what her job requires. She keeps her art projects binded together and began writing about how Metz has changed her classroom -- and her teaching abilities.

"Sarah is such an intelligent, creative student," said Main, also a adjunct professor at Marshall University. "She has been the highlight of my teaching for the past two years. She certainly makes it more interesting, and working with her makes me a better teacher."

In April, Main was published in SchoolArts Magazine, a national publication with about 20,000 in circulation. Her article highlighted ways of teaching art to visually impaired students through the means of touch.

Her second article, published in the May edition, teaches readers an activity to allow other students to see what it feels like working on an art project without sight. With the permission of classroom parents, Main did this in her own classroom and documented its results.

Main has since contracted to publish two more articles and has a verbal contract for a fifth.

Metz feels her way to her own creations. Among them are sculptures and paintings. Main says it is important to find a way to adapt each class project for Metz to gain accessibility to learning from it.

article
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/130536
Midtown
Artists overcome huge obstacle
Classes permit visually impaired to stay creative

Arizona Daily Star
Published: 05.24.2006

For 10 years, 83-year-old Fran Smith didn't touch her paintbrushes or colored pencils.
Dealing with loss of vision in her right eye and dwindling vision in her left eye, she couldn't bear to look at paintings that bore no resemblance to the quality of work she grew accustomed to producing during five years as a professional artist.
Three years ago, she hit rock bottom when the doctor pronounced her legally blind in both eyes.
But that same doctor sent her to the Southern Arizona Association for the Visually Impaired, where she rediscovered her passion in the institute's art class.
Each Monday morning, Smith and nine other visually impaired adults attend classes at the association offices, 3767 E. Grant Road. Smith uses colored pencils and a closed-circuit television screen that magnifies the paper and allows her to keep the colors between the lines. The class is preparing work for an art show in September.
Smith says the class has given her something to look forward to each week.
"It's saved my sanity," she said while finishing the green grass on a painting of a horse in a pasture. "I'm in my 80s and live by myself in a little apartment, and it's been my life. I come here and it helps me. Everybody is in the same boat."
At another table, Charlie Barnhart sits over a painting of a flower, with red paint on his fingers. Barnhart, 70, was born with a disease that left him legally blind at the age of 10.
He developed an aptitude with his hands that served him well in his 35 years as a massage therapist. And it helps him today when he uses his fingers to paint within the lines of pictures drawn with special raised paint.
He's sold some of his work, and says most of his family members back East have at least one of his paintings. Completely blind, Barnhart gauges his work by others' reactions, which are usually positive.
"I enjoy the artwork, and I enjoy learning something else I've never learned in my life," said Barnhart, who's been in the class for two years.
Instructor Laura Boles said she's extremely proud of her students who have all grown and improved since she began teaching the class nearly a year ago.
"They're smiling now," said Boles, 64, smiling herself. "When I first came here, they were all grouchy."
As Smith looks at her paintings of flowers, animals and scenery laid out on the table beside the closed-circuit television screen, a smile comes to her face as she accepts a compliment.
"I'm pleased with them. They're not what I'd like them to be, but I'm pleased with them," Smith said. "I don't know what I would do if I didn't have my art — it's my lifesaver."
Midtown

Other related posts: