[accessibleimage] photography,painter,Esref Armagan,Benodebihari Mukherjee,sculpture,lind With Camera,Henry Butler

Yes, there's more than meets the eye to those crazy sculptures you pass on your way to class each week.
Over 30 sculptures grace the hills and walkways of campus, and each involves a unique story.
Don Laderberg, art professor since 1968, recalls one of his most memorable experiences with "Fallen David" when a group of blind children took a tour of campus and used their hands, rather than their eyes, to see the beauty of the sculpture. 
Hi,
Subject of articles are
photography,painter,Esref Armagan,Benodebihari Mukherjee,sculpture,lind With Camera,Henry Butler,The Country of the Blind 

Best,
Lisa



excerpt
http://www.woking.co.uk/news/article/article_id=17415.html
Jim is visually impaired but continues to enjoy photography and was the winner of last year’s Woking’s Town Twinning Association’s photo competition. His shot of two people tucking into a picnic under umbrellas was entered in the Family Dreams category and won him a digital camera. 


excerpt
http://www.chaskaherald.com/node/1034

*Jim Hansel, Chaska*
Jim Hansel has been painting wildlife scenes for decades. He began painting when he was a youngster (starting with paint-by-numbers) and went on to major in commercial art at the University of Minnesota.
He’s produced prints for Ducks Unlimited and has received a number of honors for his work. He’s an accomplished artist despite having an eye condition called Stargardts, which left him legally blind since an early age.
Some of his prints feature local landmarks, such as a winter scene of Guardian Angels Catholic Church.
Jim Hansel’s art can be found at www.jimhanselart.com <http://www.jimhanselart.com/>. 



blog
http://flowingly.wordpress.com/
“Mind’s Eye - A painting by Turkish artist Esref Armagan (left), blind since birth. Scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess have studied Armagan to see how his visual cortex functions when painting.” [find out more at NewScientist.com or at Boston.com]
“Kennedy put Armagan through a battery of tests. For instance, he presented him with solid objects that he could feel - a cube, a cone and a ball all in a row (dubbed the “three mountains task”) - and asked him to draw them. He then asked him to draw them as though he was perched elsewhere at the table, across from himself, then to his right and left and hovering overhead. Kennedy asked him to draw two rows of glasses, stretching off into the distance. Representing this kind of perspective is tough even for a sighted person. And when he asked him to draw a cube, and then to rotate it to the left, and then further to the left, Armagan drew a scene with all three cubes. Astonishingly, he drew it in three-point perspective - showing a perfect grasp of how horizontal and vertical lines converge at imaginary points in the distance. “My breath was taken away,” Kennedy says.” The art of seeing without sight - NewScientist.com
“For the past few years, they have been studying sighted subjects who volunteer to be blindfolded for five days and learn certain nonvisual tasks, including rudimentary Braille. In every case, before subjects donned the blindfold,functional MRI (fMRI) scans revealed little activity in their visual cortices during tactile tasks. After the subjects wore the blindfolds for two days, however, the scans showed bright patches of activity in the visual brain when the subjects used their fingers for tactile or Braille-reading tasks. By day five, the visual cortex glowed steadily during these same tasks. Yet two hours after the blindfolds were removed and the subjects’ eyes had readjusted, scans of the visual area of their brains were as dark as they’d been on day one. Once the blindfolds were removed, touching, handling objects, and Braille-reading no longer activated ‘’sight” in the seeing.The cortical adaptations that occur in the blindfold studies appear-and disappear-too quickly for any new nerve connections to grow, Pascual-Leone believes. He compares the adaptive pathways in the brain to detours after road blocks; building a new street takes a long time, he explains, but if there are other existing surrounding roads, they can be used right away.” Old brain, new tricks - Boston.com 

excerpt

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1080211
Benodebihari Mukherjee (1904-1980) is one of the rare few. And the admirably curated Centenary Retrospective of this extraordinary and reclusive artist from Santiniketan at the 

National Gallery of Art, Delhi, shows just this.
Painter Ghulammohammed Sheikh and art historian R Siva Kumar have, in what can only be called a labour of love (digging into their pockets when the meagre government funds ran out), took on the gargantuan task to not only collect the vast repertoire of Mukherjee’s oeuvre and document his writings and those about him, but even manage the seemingly impossible.
They could not bring the breathtaking Hindi Bhavan mural (Life of the Medieval Saints) from Santiniketan. But they did the next best thing: they photographed (Samiran Nandy and Kumar) the mural (all 80 feet of it, looming eight feet above the ground) and blew it up to approximate its original scale.
Blind in one eye and with severe myopia in the other since his childhood, the artist-writer lost his eyesight completely after 1957, when he was just 53. But his indomitable spirit kept him going till the end. Satyajit Ray explores his creative wellsprings in his film The Inner Eye.
Taking a cue, perhaps from Henri Matisse, Mukherjee switched to using folded paper figures and working on ceramic tile murals. Severely arthritic in his old age, the French painter had also turned in his palette for paper cut-outs.
What is all the more laudatory about the retrospective is the beautifully produced catalogue (published with the help of Vadehra Art Gallery) with interesting essays from, among others, eminent painter KG Subramanyan, who assisted him on the Hindi Bhavan mural.
This and the other praise-worthy publications and a DVD presentation supported by Gallery Espace, Delhi Art Gallery and The Guild, affirm the need for more collaborations between government museums and private galleries.
While this retrospective will travel to the NGMA, Mumbai and Kolkata, there’s another centenary exhibition, curated by Santiniketan alumnus KS Radhakrishnan, tracking another Santiniketan stalwart, sculptor-painter Ram Kinkar Baij, in a year’s time.
Hats off to Rajeev Lochan, Director, NGMA, for bringing these giants of modern Indian art back centrestage. “Hearts” in their time were for art. 

excerpt
http://media.www.dailytitan.com/media/storage/paper861/news/2007/02/15/News/Campus.Art.Is.Cold.Sweet.Naked-2722249.shtml
Yes, there's more than meets the eye to those crazy sculptures you pass on your way to class each week.
Over 30 sculptures grace the hills and walkways of campus, and each involves a unique story.
Don Laderberg, art professor since 1968, recalls one of his most memorable experiences with "Fallen David" when a group of blind children took a tour of campus and used their hands, rather than their eyes, to see the beauty of the sculpture. 


article
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1080213

Their vision goes beyond sight
Mayura Janwalkar
“Had the price of looking been blindness, I would have looked.” — African-American author Ralph Ellison.
The vision of those living in a blind world spurred an ocean of imagination and was captured by a camera lens. ‘Beyond Sight’ – a unique exhibition of photographs taken by the visually impaired – is on at the NCPA.
In a first-of-its-kind programme, ‘Blind With Camera’, nine visually- challenged persons learnt the art of photography, sharpened their skills for a year and captured sounds, voices, smells and touches through the camera. Rahul Shirsat, one of the photographers, who was born blind said, “I was asked to photograph without any tips. I had only sound to base my judgment. I used my heart to capture the silence and my mind to capture noise.” Twenty-eight of their select pictures were exhibited at the inaugural ceremony.
Partho Bhowmick, the man behind the show, is an IT professional and a skilled photographer who moved from Kolkata to Mumbai in 1999. His love for photography and a drive to do something different, he says, made him think of ‘Beyond Sight’.
“The idea was to empower the visually impaired through photography and to celebrate the human spirit of self-expression,” Bhowmick said. He trained his team of nine over a year with manual SLR cameras.
By feeling objects, listening to descriptions, feeling the warmth of light to know its direction, the visually challenged photographers placed the camera using their judgment and clicked pictures.
Kanchan Pamnani, one of the participants, said the exhibition sent a message that ‘no-vision’ had adequate vision to develop an interest into a hobby. Nikhil Mundhe, a VI Class student at the VMSB, said his friends joked about the fact that the blind can take pictures but he was glad he could prove them wrong.
Impressed by the exhibition, guest of honour Justice S Radhakrishnan, Bombay High Court said, “Perhaps even sighted people wouldn’t have been able to capture such beautiful images.”
The exhibition, which was inaugurated by chairman of RPG Enterprises, Harsh Goenka on Wednesday at the Victoria Memorial School for the Blind (VMSB), Tardeo, will be open from February 17 to February 25 at the NCPA.
The photographs will be up for sale and the proceeds will be distributed among the artists and to the VMSB. 


excerpt
http://www.trumanndemocrat.com/articles/2007/02/15/news/news9.txt
A five-time W.C. Handy “Best Blues Instrumentalist - Piano” award nominee, Henry Butler knows no limitations. Although blinded by glaucoma since birth, Butler is also a world class photographer with his work displayed at exhibitions throughout the United States. Playing piano since the age of six, Butler is a master of musical diversity. Combining the percussive jazz piano playing of McCoy Tyner and the New Orleans style playing of Professor Longhair through his classically-trained wizardry, Butler continues to craft a sound uniquely his own. A rich amalgam of jazz, Caribbean, classical, pop, R&B and blues influences, his music is as excitingly eclectic as that of his New Orleans birthplace. 


????
http://www.upstagemagazine.com/articles/getarticle-new.php?ID=4605&wherefrom=mainpage
VISUALLY IMPAIRED ART ENTHUSIASTS CAN ENJOY ART EXHIBIT
__ <#viewresponses>
(RED BANK, NJ) -- A special audio tour of the Monmouth County Arts Council (MCAC) Juried Art Show will allow audiences with low vision or visual impairments to enjoy a first-hand experience of the art exhibit.
Thanks to the generosity of Community Foundation of Monmouth County, The New Jersey Blind Citizen Association, in collaboration with MCAC, has created and donated an audio description of the MCAC 28th Annual Juried Art Show & Sale. Providing the technology to record and edit the audio tour, Tom Brennan of 90.5 The Night was instrumental in MCAC's initiative to enable many more people with sight loss or impairments to enjoy the art exhibit.
"When organizations team up to deliver services to the community, everyone benefits from the experience," expresses Mary Eileen Fouratt, MCAC Executive Director. "While the MCAC Juried Art Show has always been an accessible event, this year, the show's audio description will be equally engaging for people with visual impairments and anyone who wants a description of the art in the exhibit." 


excerpt
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/indepth/features/display.var.1198165.0.art_therapy_helps_remove_limitations_on_peoples_creativity.php
"Now everyone who is a beginner is asked to draw a flowing line on a piece of paper with their eyes shut. When they open their eyes they see what they have put on paper and we go on from there. For blind people, of course it is very different."
She has developed a technique of putting lines of Blu Tack over the pencil lines so people with visual handicaps can literally feel what they have drawn.
She explained: "Someone told me, It is no good you telling me what I have created, I can't see it,' so we experimented with Blu Tack so they can feel what they have drawn."
Some of her pupils now use perfumed paint so they can smell what colours they are using. 


excerpt
http://www.examiner.com/a-570669~Walters_volunteer__retired_teacher_Braggio_more_than_a_guide.html
John Shields, manager of the docent and internship program at the museum, backed up Walsh’s evaluation of the interactive way that Braggio gives her tours.
“Sherry, as a former teacher and counselor, does a lot that’s above and beyond the usual docent duties,” Shields said. “She also gives touch tours for blind and special needs children.”
Braggio even finds time to takes her own interest in certain displays. Her favorite currently are the ones involving griffins. 

article

forwarded
The Stage (UK)
Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Theatres join project to boost access

Sixty venues across England are being targeted in a new scheme aiming to hugely 
increase access to theatre for deaf and visually impaired people by pooling 
audio description and captioning resources.

See A Voice, a project set up jointly by charities Stagetext and VocalEyes, has 
received more than £1 million in funding from the Treasury and Arts Council 
England to set up 15 'hubs' providing state of the art equipment, training for 
theatre staff and help in recruiting and training local captioners and audio 
describers for venues to share.

Theatres will be expected to continue running audio description and captioning 
services themselves once the project finishes but will be able to do so more 
cheaply than if they were to provide the services individually or through an 
outside company.

Each theatre will be encouraged to deliver at least four captioned and audio 
described performances a year, with the first taking place under the scheme 
this spring. The Almeida, Old Vic and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse theatres 
are among the venues that have already signed up to the project.
Tabitha Allum, Stagetext chief executive, said: "We really believe that the only way of making captioning financially viable is by sharing equipment and access to captioners, because it really reduces the costs. 
"The vast majority of venues we are going to work with have never done captioning 
before, so that's 60 new venues who haven't previously been able to make a financial 
commitment to regular captioning. This is going to have a huge impact."

Despite there being nine million hard of hearing and two million visually 
impaired people in the UK, only around 15 venues provide in-house captioning 
services. Stagetext provided captioning for a further 210 performances last 
year.

Audio description is more commonly used but quality varies because audio 
describers are often volunteers and do not always receive regular training. 
Theatres in the same area often fail to check with each other to avoid 
performance clashes.

The project has funding for three years and it is hoped that, if successful, it 
will attract further finances to allow the scheme to expand into more areas.


http://www.thestage.co.uk/news/newsstory.php/15765/theatres-join-project-to-boost-access


artcle forwarded from another list

Cleveland Daily Banner, TN, USA
Sunday, March 25, 2007

Speaking on amazement

By ROB COOMBS D.Min. Ph.D.
When I first heard about it, I was amazed. When I saw it, I was touched, impressed, inspired and - if completely honest - a little bit ashamed.
What did I see? I saw a shop class at a school filled with the usual tools - drills, screwdrivers, table saws, planers, chisels, ratchets, nuts and bolts, wrenches - with teenagers working hard on this particular day to create beautiful hand-crafted cutting boards.
Although intently focused on their work - above the noise of several machines - the usual chatter about upcoming events, sports and relationships reminded me that these teens had the same interests, frustrations and hopes as most teens possess.
But there was one fundamental difference. On that day, I saw what none of these teenagers had ever seen. Why? Because most of these children are totally blind. Yet, they maneuvered around the shop with a certainty uncharacteristic of many sighted teens. Since every tool has its place, these students knew exactly where to go to get what they needed - the saw to cut larger boards into strips, a chisel to scrape away excess glue, the planer to smooth the rough boards.
There seemed to be no real confusion. The shop buzzed like a busy beehive of teenagers working to create their special masterpieces. Never did I see a child misjudge where a tool might be or a large piece of equipment might stand. They were, however, constantly bumping into each other. Since there is no way to know where other students might be, the collisions were fairly frequent. But even this was handled with grace: "Excuse me." "That's okay."
When the 75 minutes came to a close, every tool had been carefully put back in its place by the students. Their work for the day was stashed away in cabinets where they would return the next day to retrieve their creations and return to the task at hand. As a gift, I have a wooden pen and pencil set made in this shop. The students make them and sell them for fundraisers.
Their last project was wooden door chimes. They even make derby cars and race them with great enthusiasm. One advanced student is handcrafting a desk. It's absolutely beautiful. Typical of many high school teenagers, the students seem to absolutely love this class. Several confessed to me that it sure beats being in math or science class.
Their teacher, an obviously sensitive and caring man who understands the delicate balance between encouragement and expectation, understands, too, that beyond the fun, there is hope - hope that one day many of these teenagers can live successful, productive lives, working jobs with the skills learned in his shop class.
Nine years he has done this work. Nine years without a single accident. After 15 years in a sighted shop at a public school where children cut off fingers just by being carelessly inattentive, he readily admits that he wants to be nowhere else than where he is.
I left convinced that I would never again complain about any self-imposed limitations. If totally blind students can take joy in creating works of art they will never see, then why should any of us ever question our ability to do anything we set our minds to?
Perhaps all of us could use a few lessons from blind students to teach us what we cannot see. 


http://www.clevelandbanner.com/NF/omf/daily_banner/lifestyle_story.html?rkey=0065218+cr=gdn


article

http://www.infozine.com/news/stories/op/storiesView/sid/21794/
New Frank Higgins Drama Premieres at Coterie Theatre
By *Jeannine Chatterton-Papineau*
Kansas City, Mo. - infoZine - The play was inspired by and loosely based on a short story of the same title by H. G. Wells. Wells would probably be pleased and proud of this adaptation; it is an innovative and satisfying play of ideas.
The Storyteller, played by Dale Westgaard, introduces us to Eduardo (Lucian Connole) and his village in the foothills of the Andes. Eduardo has lost his sight in one eye, and because of that, and because he is very poor, he is treated badly in his village. The storyteller, who is also sometimes a participant in the story, reminds Eduardo of a legendary "Country of the Blind," where his one eye could be expected to give him an edge and Eduardo decides to seek this mysterious place. When the search is successful, the story is still just beginning because he is surprised by the welcome he receives.
When we first see Eduardo in his home village, he is attracted by a local beauty played by Rachel May Roberts, and is defeated in his conquest by Dashing Daniel (Alex Espy). The folk tale quality of the play is enhanced by the use of masks in this village.
Eduardo quickly forgets losing his hometown beauty when he encounters the beautiful and intelligent Medina (Vanessa Severo). She alone in her village thinks that perhaps being different might just be different, not necessarily bad. Will Medina and Eduardo fall in love? Of course they will.
Shannon Curry and Ashley Tilton as villagers & ensemble, give a sense of populace and were eecially effective when the Country of the Blind villagers engage in overtone singing, a technique with which a single human voice can simultaneously produce two or more clearly audible tones. Musical director Kit Bardwell taught this innovative technique to the cast and the sound was amazing when the people gathered to sing.
Most of the cast play dual roles and Niccole Therman is particularly adept in hers as a barker in Eduardo's home village and as the Leader and the mother of Medina in the Country of the Blind.
An innovative feature of this play is the incorporation of Audio Description into the play itself. Audio Description has been around for a while. When theatres wish to make the action of a play accessible for non-sighted audience members, they have traditionally provided those visitors with a head set and a speaker has given audio description - less complete than announcing a ball game over the radio, but that's the gist of it.
In this production, for the first time ever, the audio description is incorporated into the play and narrated by the Storyteller. This playwrighting and presentation technique was completely successful. Had it not been pointed out to me, I would not have been aware of it. Besides describing the action on stage, the storyteller occasionally acted as a force, not just describing an action or playing a character, but slowing or speeding action so we can see it plainly. This may sound contrived, but it seemed completely natural in the context of the play.
The Country of the Blind must have presented some directorial challenges and they were well met by director Martin English, who is also the Executive Director of Accessible Arts, a non-profit organization that champions the arts for children with disabilities. The resource guide for teachers details some of the efforts made at inclusion in this production. These efforts extend to having blind cast members with special set modifications made for them and incorporating a sort of twirling dance that is uniquely appealing to non-sighted people.
The settings, designed to be portable, because the show will tour, and the beautifully detailed costumes were impressive. The worrisome thing about them is why the sighted village and its inhabitants were so drab and worn and the blind village was so bright and colorful. The resource notes mention color there as an accidental side-effect of dying with flowers-based dyes, but why would they dye their fabric at all....
The program notes and teacher's resources focus on several ideas including ideas about fitting in and being different, disabilities and when apparent disabilities might be regarded as advantages, and inclusion, both in the arts and in main-stream life. In addition to these themes this play could stimulate discussions about myth creation, the importance of listening, how it is possible to discern truth, what sacrifices should love demand ... probably more. I repeat, it's a very satisfying play.
Frank Higgins is a prolific and nationally recognized playwright and poet, who makes his home in Kansas City. As professor of playwrighting at UMKC, he has a special relationship with Coterie Theatre and four of his plays have premiered there: Dead Connections (with Stuart Boyce) - 1978, The King of Lemonade - 1980, Never Say Die - 1985, and Heartland - 1986. These and many other plays for youth are published and available for production.
But Higgins also writes for adults and has been widely produced, especially in New York and Virginia. Ignoring out-of-town productions, local theatre goers have been treated to Miracles at the Lawrence Community Theatre in 2003, and more recently, WMKS: Where Music Kills Sorrow at the then Missouri Rep. Doubtless there have been others, but this is what the internet passed along to me.
On the same night as the Country of the Blind opening, another play, The Questioning, is opening in New York. This one-act play, directed by Lorrel Manning, is about a female American officer learning the art of interrogation from a female Iraqi. In May of this year, Crazyology: A Kaleidoscope of Carnality will be produced at Avila Univeristy in Kansas City.
The Country of the Blind will continue through April 1, 2007, at Coterie Theatre, Crown Center, Kansas City, Missouri. Call 816 474 6552 for ticket information
Yes, there's more than meets the eye to those crazy sculptures you pass on your way to class each week.
Over 30 sculptures grace the hills and walkways of campus, and each involves a unique story.
Don Laderberg, art professor since 1968, recalls one of his most memorable experiences with "Fallen David" when a group of blind children took a tour of campus and used their hands, rather than their eyes, to see the beauty of the sculpture. Yes, there's more than meets the eye to those crazy sculptures you pass on your way to class each week.
Over 30 sculptures grace the hills and walkways of campus, and each involves a unique story.
Don Laderberg, art professor since 1968, recalls one of his most memorable experiences with "Fallen David" when a group of blind children took a tour of campus and used their hands, rather than their eyes, to see the beauty of the sculpture.

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