[accessibleimage] links to articles, artists, tactile pavement, exhibitions, IFLA

Hi,
Enclosed are links to news articles, and text of most of the articles follow the link list. A few of the articles are perhaps one that have been posted before, am unsure, sorry about the doubling up.
For those interested in libraries the IFLA is having its conference these days in Oslo and on thursday the 18 having papers about blind and libraries link to conference and following the articles have included the posts about libraries for the blind
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/index.htm

Disabled need better beach access

tactile pavement

http://www.postnewspapers.com.au/20050709/letters/003.shtml

THE BLIND LEADING THE SEEING

http://www.tcgnews.com/santiagotimes/index.php?nav=story&story_id=9578&topic_id=4

Sensory garden

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/08/07/Hernando/What_s_happening.shtml

artist Chen Hui-kun

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2005/07/15/2003263566

Feel for painting: Blind Texas artist uses memory and touch (posted ??)

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/living/12160185.htm

Spike Mafford photo - calendar

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0529/050720_arts_vacalendar.php

Spike Mafford

http://www.komotv.com/stories/38302.htm

Peter Moore artist

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/articles/2005/07/25/news/news03.txt

Art after dark

Local artists find a home downtown for the 'Midsummer Nights Eve' Gallery Night

link to full article, excerpt included further on

http://www.pensacolanewsjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050726/LIFE/507260305/1004

link to artist talked about in article above

http://www.artbykimchi.com/

Bitter over losing her sight, artist finds her strength

http://www.natchezdemocrat.com/articles/2005/07/30/news/news97.txt

Touch-read cards for your hearts only

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=141759

Art's inner voice speaks to distinct sense of self

link to catched article

http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:ZmM7Hpa7Z44J:www.commercialappeal.com/mca/exhibitions/ar

ticle/0,1426,MCA_570_3977587,00.html+Art%27s+inner+voice+speaks+to+distinct+sense+of+self&hl=

en

excerpt

"Looking ... Seeing" by Bonnie Tate is an installation dwelling on the loss of sight.

Portraits of five blind people are accompanied by photographs stamped in braille and a

light-proof booth with recordings of the blind. The work challenges ideas about the

accessibility of art, and what it means to create art for the blind in a museum environment

where one mustn't touch.

-------------------------------------------------------

THE BLIND LEADING THE SEEING

(July 22, 2005) It seems somewhat insensitive to call an exhibit about the loss of sight a

“must-see.” But in fact what “Shooting Blind: Photographs by the Visually Impaired” reveals

is that, rather than our sympathy, many of the visually impaired deserve our admiration.

The traveling exhibition, which is currently on display at Sala Gasco’s fully exposed

street-side gallery, is the first large-scale project by Seeing with Photography, a

collective of New York photographers with visual limitations ranging from partial to complete

blindness. In photography, its members have found various opportunities – to see the world

more clearly, to understand vision and how it is translated into the language of photography,

or to develop pride in succeeding at a seemingly impossible task – according to interviews

they gave for the exhibition’s accompanying book.

The photographs in this consummate exhibition have been made using Polaroid’s

positive/negative film, and in some cases, an old technique called “painting with light,” in

which flashlights are used to illuminate the subjects over long exposures in complete

darkness (www.apperture.org).

Whichever techniques each artist employed, however, the final products are all otherworldly

and entrancing. Most of the images are warped or watery – as if seen through shallow rippling

waves. They often play with shadows, patches of illumination or scratches of luminescent

rays, like in Victorine Floyd Flood’s “Radiant Abyss.” Some, like “Sara” by Roseann Kahn, are

dazzling like a psychedelic circus.

However, the subjects – often the artists themselves – are what truly captivate. Eyes, often

glazed, rarely wide open, seem to float beyond the frames, and when the faces are distorted

or shrouded, their presence is all the more felt. Hands play a compositional role as well,

perhaps to emphasize the importance of touch.

The photographers have obviously put a lot of thought into their compositions in order to

convey the experience of being blind. Some are disquieting, such as “John with Welder’s

Goggles,” by John Gardner, Steven Erra and Mark Andres, which closes in upon a man whose

eerie gas mask looms above all else. Others are thought-provoking, such as Stephen Dominguez’

“Light Bound,” which shows a man’s face wrapped in bands of light. Is it simply a

representation of the restrictions of being blind or does the title hint that perhaps it is

not blindness itself that is restricting, but rather a world constructed by the seeing?

By Nina L. Vizcarrondo (culturalreview@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)

“Shooting Blind: Photographs by the Visually Impaired”

Until July 30, Monday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Sala Gasco Arte Contemporaneo, Santo Domingo 1061, Santiago

Tel: 694 4444, web site: www.salagasco.cl

Sensory garden

The Rotary Club of Spring Hill completed its centennial project in June - construction of a

"sensory garden" for the Lighthouse for the Visually Impaired and Blind.

The project was headed by Rotarian Carol Okula and took nearly six months to complete. The

garden is designed to provide an experience to those with no or limited sight. It features a

large patio and mobility path, a trellis entrance, a fountain, wind chimes and bird baths.

The plants and trees were chosen not only for their beauty, but for their durable foliage,

strong scents and vibrant colors. The project was completed on June 18, when Rotarians were

assisted by a group of volunteers, Team Depot, from Home Depot's community service group.

The volunteers and Rotarians cleared the garden, planted, edged and mulched. Many local

businesses and individuals donated time and money to make the project a success.

Feel for painting: Blind Texas artist uses memory and touch

BY TERRY LEE GOODRICH

Knight Ridder Newspapers

DENTON, Texas - (KRT) - John Bramblitt's world began to shrink four years ago, when he

noticed friends' faces becoming blurrier.

At first he shrugged it off. After all, Bramblitt, now 34, had worn glasses since he was 11.

But his eyesight declined to legal blindness - and worse. Now he barely perceives light and

uses a cane to find his way.

But it wasn't until he could no longer see vivid images that he decided to capture them in

oil on canvas.

"I got more and more angry because I felt everything was on hold," said Bramblitt, a senior

English major at the University of North Texas. "I didn't leave the apartment much; I

couldn't read. I kept going to school, but I was getting incompletes. I thought, `Art isn't

going to be another thing I can't do.'"

The blue-eyed man put aside the question of why he became blind - doctors still don't know -

to concentrate on a different issue: How to create.

Bramblitt found a way, using touch and visual memories, to teach himself to paint. He

recently sold his first painting, a portrait of a blues musician, for $650. A solo exhibition

of his works opens July 18 at the University of North Texas.

Back when he could see, he had sketched idly, then tossed the drawings. But he wanted to try

again, this time to fill the void in his life.

First he found a way other than vision to visualize.

On a trip to Mexico with friends about a year ago, the El Paso, Texas, native was struck by

the serenity of a stranger he met. Bramblitt asked an unusual question: Could he explore the

man's face with his hands? The stranger said yes.

At a Denton nightclub, Bramblitt asked the same question of Pops Carter, 86, a blues musician

whose music he likes. Carter agreed.

"I wasn't doin' nothin'," Carter said. "I was standing right there on break. It didn't

tickle."

At home, Bramblitt's fluffy little dog, Ann - part papillon, part Chihuahua - was an even

easier subject. The image of Ann, 10 years old, was already etched into Bramblitt's memory,

and he did not need to ask permission to touch her to refresh it. Besides, Ann held no

grudges from the day he fumbled for the remote control and accidentally bopped her with it.

Scrutinies done, it was time for Bramblitt to convey his feelings - tactile and emotional.

"I painted many paintings in my mind, stroke for stroke, before I ever bought a brush," he

said.

Next, he experimented to find a substance he could use to make raised outlines, patterns to

follow for the impressions tucked into his mind.

Glue took too long to dry; correction fluid seeped into the canvas. But a fast-drying fabric

paint works well.

When it comes time to bring an image to life with color, touch helps again. He cannot read

labels identifying hues of oil paints, so friends helped at first. Then he began to recognize

textures, enabling him to blend colors and paint more rapidly. Black is slicker than white;

burnt sienna is like jelly. And aquamarine glides onto the canvas after it has been mixed

with white.

"Then I just try to remember how light and shadow were," he said.

He also draws from his past. He started college after high school but took several years off

because he has a seizure disorder that often left him weak. As he tried various medicines to

control the seizures, he worked as an office manager for his father's diesel injection shop.

He resumed college and was awarded a fellowship. He made the dean's list and - even better -

the president's list for his 4.0 grade-point average before his vision deteriorated.

For the past two years, he has painted rodeos and nudes. Churches and billiard players. Wine

bottles and his girlfriend. Even a disturbing self-portrait depicting his frustration at

sinking into darkness.

At first he was hesitant to let others see an in-progress image, but now he turns to

girlfriend Jacqi Serie - he calls her "Gorgeous" - and others for feedback.

"John has definitely evolved into a more receptive artist," said Serie, who has a degree in

art photography and is a wedding photographer. The two began dating two years ago, when

Bramblitt's sight was virtually gone. He enlarged a photo of her, hoping to see what she

looks like, but the image was obscure.

"I admire his ability to capture something realistically, even if he can't see it, but also

put his own twist on it," she said. "I'm honest with him if I think something is a little

awkward, and he's never gotten upset.

"Sometimes, he's like, `Well, yeah' and will rework it," Serie said. "Other times he says: `I

like it. I'll leave it.'"

Bramblitt jokes that if he is a terrible painter, at least he will never have to look at his

art.

But he also does not believe that "bad art" exists.

"Art is expression. Liking one person's art over another doesn't mean that the art is any

better or worse," he said. "But I don't like it when people don't feel one way or another. At

least, even if they don't like it, they're connecting in some way with the artist."

Bramblitt said he is encouraged by knowing that other artists have wrestled with impaired

vision, including Claude Monet and Edgar Degas.

Some painters turn to other media, such as sculpture, as they begin to lose their sight, said

Vickie Collins, vice president of National Exhibits by Blind Artists, a Philadelphia-based

nonprofit organization that holds juried exhibits.

Some use extremely bright colors and a large canvas to compensate; many use magnifiers, she

said.

And some, like Bramblitt, begin when they no longer see.

Whatever their stories, "our artists want to be able to stand on their own," Collins said.

Bramblitt recently made his first sale, the portrait of bluesman Carter, for $650 to Tim

Trawick, owner of the Texas Jive bar and restaurant in Denton, Bramblitt said.

"I'm a big fan of Pops, and John's been in my club a number of times," Trawick said. "I knew

John was blind, but I didn't know he was a painter."

Trawick was captivated when he saw Carter's likeness at one of the bar's sporadic art

exhibits.

"I thought, `That's incredible,'" he said. "Then I found out John had done it. That put it

over the top - that he did it from feeling Pops' face and features and that he did it so

well."

Carter was equally impressed. A friend gave him a printout of his portrait from Bramblitt's

Web site, and Carter hung it on his living-room wall near an autographed photo of B.B. King.

"Boy oh boy. That painting is amazing - it's me," he said.

Several of Bramblitt's paintings have been chosen by the art faculty and staff for a solo

exhibit at the Union Gallery at the University of North Texas, said Carol Wilkinson, manager

of the university's Design Works.

One who looks at Bramblitt's art from a clinical standpoint is an optometrist, Stephanie

Fleming of Dallas, a specialist in low vision.

She began testing Bramblitt extensively two years ago.

"I'm not an art critic, but I was really appreciative of how realistic things were from his

visual memory," she said.

The cause of his blindness remains a mystery, she said.

"Sometimes there's just no answer," Fleming said. "I'm very surprised at how well he's

handled it. He's been very upbeat."

Bramblitt has his blue times.

"Eyes are so hard to paint," he said. "Before, people's eyes told so much. That was the first

thing I always looked at."

But he is determined his world will not shrink again.

So he taps his way along Denton sidewalks, avoiding sidewalk cracks and sidestepping trash

bins that protrude.

He has completed more than a year of mobility training, even navigating his way through

downtown Dallas and Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. He looks forward to getting a guide

dog eventually - a Lab, perhaps, or a boxer - although Ann will never slip in his affection,

he said.

Using a computer program with a scanner and an automated voice, he can read again. His grades

have improved, and he plans to graduate in May, head on to graduate school, become an English

professor - and paint.

"For a while when I started painting, it was almost as if I was trying to throw my blindness

back in God's face," he said. "I feel a lot calmer now, a lot better. It's become like maybe

it was God's plan.

"I don't want to stop."

---

ONLINE: www.bramblitt.com, National Exhibits by Blind Artists at www.nebaart.org

excerpt from article

One of Mondello's current featured artists is pastel artist Kim Chi Tinnirella, 38, of

Navarre. Tinnirella, who was born in Vietnam and raised in Pensacola after her family fled to

the United States in 1975, feels her artistic abilities come naturally.

"I always loved to draw," she said. "If you had asked me as a child what I wanted to be, I

would have said an artist."

Tinnirella only became serious about art as an adult, after painting a picture as a present

for her husband.

"He loved it, and he really encouraged me to get back into art," she said.

Tinnirella is legally blind because of a degenerative genetic eye disease. She uses a

magnifying glass when she draws and paints.

"But I think my work is better," she said. "I have to concentrate much more now than I did

when I was younger, and it shows."

Examples of Tinnirella's work can be seen on her Web site -- www.artbykimchi.com.

Touch-read cards for your hearts only

Its aimed at sensitivity to build a vision into their lives

Aishwarya Mavinkurve

Pune, July 30: The 3 X 3 card feels good to touch. It’s also appealing in many ways — a

pastel colour, a boy’s face drawn by blind artist Sudhir Shende, a couplet by blind poetess

Gunjana Kharat and lots of smileys. There’s also the white cane. And if you buy one, it will

help the visually-challenged.

The card, made by a team of six visually-impaired students of the NGO Niwant Andh Mukta

Vikasalay (NAMV), has a lot more to say. Open the card and read the translation of the

two-line poem in Braille with the help of the Braille alphabet. And you’ll enter the world of

the visually-impaired. Already, two sets of five such cards each — one in Marathi and another

in English— have been designed and are ready for distribution.

‘‘The idea is to sensitise more people to the needs of the visually- impaired, and help

students to be self-reliant. The concept of space, shapes and lines is novel to these

students hence the sketches, though not perfect, indicate their efforts at understanding our

world. Also the Braille greeting card, is an invitation to their world,’’ says Meera Badwe,

founder of NAMV. The money generated from the sale will go towards helping students become

independent and sustain activities that NAMV conducts — recording texts on cassettes for the

visually-impaired, a library of books in Braille and a computer section which these students

can operate.

Interestingly, the cards are postage free as they contain Braille literature. Orders for the

greeting cards have already been placed by a few corporate entities. The cards will be

available at the NAMV’s Vidyanagar premises.

excerpt from article

"Looking ... Seeing" by Bonnie Tate is an installation dwelling on the loss of sight.

Portraits of five blind people are accompanied by photographs stamped in braille and a

light-proof booth with recordings of the blind. The work challenges ideas about the

accessibility of art, and what it means to create art for the blind in a museum environment

where one mustn't touch.



IFLA

Thursday 18 August

155 SI - Libraries for the Blind with Public Libraries Achieving inclusion through partnership · The three tiers of government and the many tears of librarians: library
and information services for people with print disabilities in South Africa
JOHAN ROOS (South African Library for the Blind, Grahamstown, South
Africa) · [ http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/papers/084e-Nguyen.pdf ]Services for the
blind in the public libraries of Vietnam: making Vietnamese public
libraries more accessible to visually impaired people
NGUYEN THI BAC (General Sciences Library, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) · Visunet Canada Partners Program: a partnership offered by the CNIB
Library to libraries and library consortia in Canada to extend their
services to members of their communities who are unable to read and print
MARGARET McGRORY (CNIB Library, Toronto, Canada) · [ http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/papers/083e-Keun.pdf ]Public library as
an agent of a Braille library KEUN HAE YOUK (Korean Braille Library, Seoul, Korea) · [ http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/papers/082e-Brazier.pdf ]Charity,
charges and chaos: the story of library services for visually impaired
people in the UK

HELEN BRAZIER (National Library for the Blind, Stockport, UK) · [ http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/papers/085e-Beckman-Hirschfeldt.pdf
]Library services for all: the Swedish way

INGAR BECKMAN HIRSCHFELDT (Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille,
Enskede, Sweden) · [ http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla71/papers/178e-Byrne.pdf ]Advancing Library
Services for the blind in the global information society
ALEX BYRNE (University of Technology, Sydney, Australia












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