[accessibleimage] museum, sculpture, judging, graphit,garden,ballet

Delaware Art Museum
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060830/OPINION07/608300327/-1/NEWS01

sculptur
http://www.cleveland.com/living/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/living/1157100081274620.xml&coll=2

Concepts in clay
http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/local/ci_4273616
garden
http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060831/REPORTER10/608310358/1113

judging
http://www.carcollector.com/feature_sum.cfm?typename=Features

ballet
http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1084&ArticleID=1732342

graphit
http://fredsheadcompanion.blogspot.com/2006/08/producing-braille-and-audio-graphs-of.html


article



 The art museum is annex to education

Posted Wednesday, August 30, 2006
DELAWARE VOICE

A group of blind students recently toured the Delaware Art Museum and had a hands-on lesson with clay. When one student was asked what he enjoyed most about the visit, he replied, "I never knew I had so much talent!"

Wouldn't it be wonderful if each and every one of us could feel that way about ourselves? How many children finish their school day feeling talented and empowered, eager to learn more and try new things? As a career educator, I have seen firsthand how art education and museum visits can transform lives and reinvigorate learning.

Learning about art is seldom just learning about art. Because art is such a complex form of human expression, art appreciation requires multiple critical thinking and observation skills. Works from different times and places open up conversations about history, geography and social context. Reading a painting, like reading a story, requires complex decoding and interpretation skills.

Even mathematical abilities can be improved by examining spatial relationships and the interaction of geometric shapes. Most important, study after study indicates that art is a great motivator to keep students engaged in school.

*An important subject*

Unfortunately, I have also seen how easy it is to dismiss art. When school budgets are cut, art classes are among the first to fall. I know how important reading and math are for success in the adult world. But so is creative thinking.

A narrow focus on basic skills will not deliver the broad base of knowledge or critical thinking skills necessary to succeed in college or an increasingly competitive work environment. We can't afford to cut our youth out of the cultural loop, especially as many jobs are outsourced overseas in a creative economy.

Concerned educators do not have to find a way to bring art into the classroom all by themselves. The Delaware Art Museum is a willing partner in expanding art education for all students, whether in public, private or parochial schools.

The museum walls resound with stories of the American revolution, Arthurian legend, pirate adventures and Shakespeare. Highly skilled museum educators can fashion lessons to fit a teacher's needs.

In addition to the museum's many thematic, age-appropriate tour offerings, there will be a number of special exhibitions throughout the year, complemented by teacher workshops. And inside the Bank of America Education Wing, studio art classes help students of all ages and skill levels develop abilities in drawing, painting, sculpting and other genres.

Nevertheless, costs associated with a trip to the museum, such as transportation and admission fees, may not fit into a school's budget.

That is why the Delaware Art Museum is launching the Red Apple Fund for Student Enrichment. The fund will pay for museum tours appropriate from kindergarten to grade 12, collaborative events with area schools, and enrollment in studio art classes and seasonal camps that teach the fundamentals of art.

The Red Apple Fund will receive its financing through corporate sponsorships. I invite all businesses in the region to contribute.

Besides the philanthropic desire to bring art to a wide audience, there are practical reasons to donate. Diversifying educational opportunities and helping students develop intellectual abilities will advance K-12 education in Delaware. This will enhance the home-grown work force and draw more potential employees to this state from elsewhere.

AstraZeneca is the first corporate supporter of the Red Apple Fund. I look forward to welcoming additional sponsors to link students and art.

Danielle Rice is executive director of the Delaware Art Museum.
TO PARTICIPATE

For information about donating to the Red Apple Fund, e-mail redapple@xxxxxxxxxxx



article
Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio USA
Friday, September 01, 2006

A sculptor's touchstone

By Debbi Snook, Plain Dealer Reporter

Artist measures his life by what he has been given, not lost

Every morning, Chappelle Let man 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.


excerpt article Concepts in clay


"We get students from the 10-year-olds, students in their late 70s, developmentally disabled to people who are legally blind," Medina said.

"This studio is incredible," said Belle Hicks of Ukiah, a tenured student in the ceramics class. "This has to be one of the best college studios.

"And I lost some of my vision years ago, so I can make pottery by just feeling. Right now I am making a series of plates, but I really like to make mugs. I really do it for personal enrichment."

article

Asbury Park Press, NJ, USA
Thursday, August 31, 2006

Garden for the blind

GARDEN FOR THE BLIND

Colts Neck haven is brainchild of Eagle Scout
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 08/31/06
BY ALESHA WILLIAMS
STAFF WRITER

Elizabeth Walzer of Belmar knows what it's like to be left out.

Legally blind, Walzer recalls a visit to a New York museum three years ago.

"Not one thing in there was labeled in Braille, except for the elevators," Walzer said. 
"It would have been much nicer to be able to stand there and actually have some idea of what 
was there."

She has had similar experiences in restaurants and other public places where 
visually-impaired people weren't given much consideration.

But Walzer, 42, felt right at home when she visited the Aug. 12 ribbon-cutting 
ceremony for Colts Neck's new Garden for the Blind. It is one of only two such 
gardens in the state, she said.

"It's nice to be able to go somewhere and say, "You know what? They weren't just 
thinking about people with sight,' " said Walzer, president of Monmouth County 
Association for the Blind in Wall.

"They're thinking about the person who can't just instantly appreciate the beauty, 
the people who don't just see with our eyes, because we see with our hands, too," 
she said.


The garden is the brainchild of Jon-Edward Lelesi, 16, who designed and 
built it at the municipal complex as his Eagle Scout project. The Colts Neck 
Township High School student was inspired to create it after seeing a similar 
one in Iselin fall into disrepair.

Lelesi, with the help of about 30 friends and members of Monmouth Council of 
Boy Scouts Troop 290 in Colts Neck, said he started construction on the 
30-by-30-foot garden in June. Businesses and organizations, including Clayton 
Concrete in Lakewood and the Association for the Blind, donated materials 
including concrete and Braille labels describing the plants.

Lelesi's team spent 1,200 volunteer hours building the concrete foundation and 
wooden planters, fencing the area and carving a 3-foot-tall wooden Saint 
Bernard they nicknamed Madison.

The garden is designed to appeal to all the senses, Lelesi said.

Wind chimes hang and a waterfall trickles so visually impaired people can enjoy 
hearing them. Plants such as the rubbery ice plant or the furry lamb's ear line 
a garden path for patrons to touch.

Fragrant plants, including lavender and mint, are there, too, Lelesi said.

Even Madison and another concrete statue of a Seeing-Eye German shepherd are 
carved with finger-friendly grooves and surfaces.

But the garden isn't just for the blind, Lelesi said.

A few feet away from the garden, the township library has blindfolds free for 
the public to use at the park.

"They can cover their eyes and go through the garden blindfolded," Lelesi said. "I 
thought having the blindfolds would help out the community and help school groups and other groups 
understand how blind people live and what they go through."

Barbara Byrne of Colts Neck Township Recreation and Parks said she believes the 
garden will serve both the sighted and visually impaired community locally and 
throughout the county, if not the state.

The department worked with Lelesi to get the project approved and donated more 
than $2,300 worth of lumber for planters.

"It's one of few parks of its kind," Byrne said after the ribbon cutting by Mayor Kenneth 
Florek. "It's wonderful that they (the blind) have a place to go and enjoy a garden just like 
sighted people might."

Frank Crisafulli, Lelesi's 16-year-old troop mate, said he wanted to help his friend out 
with what he thought was a "really good idea."

"I would never have thought of that," Crisafulli said of the garden. "He's putting a 
lot of attention on a group that gets overlooked a lot."


http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060831/REPORTER10/608310358/1113


article

Car Collector Magazine (USA)
Thursday, August 31, 2006

Eyes On Design: The Definitive Celebration of Automotive Design Shines Once Again 

By Rob Clements

September 2006 Page: 48 

EXTRACT: "White-gloved visually impaired judges are guided around the cars to be 
felt from bumper to bumper and a winner is therefore chosen on more of a sculptural 
aspect."

This year's theme, Art of Design has again given this event a unique feel. The customary classes of vehicles defined by country of origin or production year were replaced by descriptive styles of art; Renaissance, Abstract, Cubism, Minimalism, and Romanesque to name a few.

Since design has always been the defining word at EOD, the judging needed to reflect that aspect as well. A speck of rust, a misaligned screw head, or an incorrect replacement part will not deduct points on an entry since the key element is whether the car fits the theme.

The Renaissance class was as the name implied, the oldest. Packard, Chrysler, Cord, and Auburn were the common names found on the row of license plaques but it was a vibrant orange and cream 1929 Hudson Dual Cowl Phaeton that caught my tired morning eyes. Eldon "Mr. Hudson" Hostetler was gracious enough to bring this one of his 52 Hudsons from his home in Indiana. This year the DIO chose this class for the Visionaries Award selection which is yet another exclusive twist to EOD. White-gloved visually impaired judges are guided around the cars to be felt from bumper to bumper and a winner is therefore chosen on more of a sculptural aspect. A flawless 1930 Pierce Arrow Sport Phaeton with its fender-molded headlights deservedly went home with the crystal Visionaries Trophy.

This is just a preview of the quality content and photos you receive every month when you subscribe to Car Collector. 

http://www.carcollector.com/feature_sum.cfm?typename=Features


article

Yorkshire Today (UK)
Thursday, August 31, 2006

Youngsters kept on their toes at ballet workshop

Caroline Burn,of Northern Ballet, tries out some props with Jacob Callaghan and 
his brother Joseph at the company's West Park centre in Leeds and right, 
Caroline works with Glenn Fielden, Joseph Callaghan, Jacob Callaghan and Emma 
Blakey at a dance summer school for children and young people with visual 
impairments and their families.

Yesterday the participants in the Summer Sensations programme were put through their paces at Northern Ballet's base in Leeds. 

The project is an opportunity for participants to develop dancing skills 
including co-ordination, body awareness and musicality, while meeting new 
people in a fun and relaxed atmosphere.

A spokeswoman for the dance company said: "Northern Ballet Theatre is committed to 
working with visually impaired people in the community, offering opportunities to 
participate in dance projects throughout the year."

31 August 2006


http://www.yorkshiretoday.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=1084&ArticleID=1732342


article

Producing Braille and Audio Graphs of Mathematical Equations

By Michael McCarty

Graphit is a graphing calculator program you can use in conjunction with a braille embosser to produce braille graphs of mathematical equations. It isn't a hand-held graphing calculator, but for anyone who is looking for a quick and easy way to enable blind students to see graphical representations of an equation, this is a solution.

Graphit features one command Braille output of graphs from typed complex equations. Graphit also provides an audio representation of the graph on your speech synthesizer through a single keystroke. Other features include:

Control the size and specific information contained in the graph. Supports algebraic, trigonometric, exponential and logarithmic equations. Menu driven interface for easy setup and use. Support for Blazer, VersaPoint Duo and Inferno embossers, among others. For use with IBM Compatible PCs (with Graph It PC only) and Freedom Scientific notetakers with the exception of the Braille Lite M20 and M40. 

Freedom Scientific Blind/Low Vision Group
11800 31st Court North
St. Petersburg, FL 33716
Toll Free: 800-444-4443
Phone: 727-803-8000
Fax: 727-803-8001
Email: Info@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Web: http://www.freedomscientific.com


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