[accessibleimage] report on "Braille" art exhibit in Seattle

Greetings all,

Yesterday, July 17, my partner, Robby Barnes and I visited Francine Seders
Gallery to look at photographer Spike Mafford's photo art show titled
"Braille."
The Seattle Weekly  description (see below my signature) says that for the
past several years he "has been trying to figure out how to bring the
aesthetic experience of visual art to both the blind and sighted."
It also says that "Mafford has incorporated tactile elements, including
Braille lettering and raised forms, into his printed photos with the goal of
discovering how a printed photograph changes after being touched by
"viewers."

Neither Robby nor I found this show a satisfying art experience.  As far as
both of us are concerned, Mafford  has not succeeded in creating art that
most people who are blind or have low vision can independently, directly and
fully enjoy or appreciate. His work particularly falls far short of
providing an authentic and satisfying experience of visual art to blind
people.

None of Mafford's photos contain any feelable actual textures. They are
simply printed in ways that "show" textures" to those who can see them. Some
partially sighted people, like Robby, will be able to see the textures in
the photos, and many will not. No blind person can see or even feel them.

Next to each photo is a print label, printed in 12 point type, not large
print. It is possible to get as close as one desires to the photos and the
labels, so Robby was able to read these labels with his hand-held lens.
Others may be able to read them with monoculars or other magnifying devices,
but not all people with low vision will be able to read them at all.

There are over-sized/large and gigantic half-spheres to simulate braille
dots glued on the walls, scattered around the display. Some of these dots
spell out words and short phrases related to the photos. Some of them are
too high for short people, including children, to reach. Some of these large
braille words and phrases replicate the print labels for the photos, but mos
t of the photos do not have braille labels for their titles.

There are also short poems written in braille and pasted onto each photo.
They are fairly complex English and in contracted braille, so they are not
generally comfortable for either new English learners or new braille readers
to read and possibly enjoy.

These poems are not posted in print of any size. So, those sighted gallery
visitors who cannot read braille and who do not have braille readers with
them can only marvel at the weird writing that blind people use. They cannot
read the poems, and will probably not even know that the braille writings on
the photos are short poems, rather than something else, because there is no
indication of what they contain.  This lack of information of what the
braille writing contains means that the sighted viewers who are not braille
readers and are not accompanied by braille readers do not have the words of
the poems added to their aesthetic experience of this visual art.

Most of the exhibit consists of pairs of two photos grouped within one
frame. There are a number of notices, posted on the walls only in 12 point
print type, asking visitors to limit their touching to the left side of each
pair of photos. These notices are not posted in braille. However, some
visitors who do not read braille and are not accompanied by braille readers
may mistakenly think that the braille on the photos contain the words of
these notices. The idea of limiting the parts of photos touched is that over
time sighted people will be able to see the difference between the parts of
the photos that have been touched a lot and those that have not. Gallery
visitors who are blind or have low vision will participate in making these
differences but will not be able to participate in experiencing the results.

Since I am totally blind and read braille and Robby is partially sighted, we
moved through the exhibit together, sharing what each of us were able to
experience. I read the braille poems on the photos and he described the
photos. I believe that my reading of the poems in braille added something to
his esthetic experience of the photos, in a much more positive way than the
mere presence of the braille unread would have.

But, even Robby's very clear and detailed description of the photos,
supplemented by the gallery attendant's periodic comments about the artist's
intentions as she understood them, left me very frustrated. I found this to
be a rather poor poetic experience, not a full esthetic experience, as
advertised. Although Robby and I were able to cooperate in this context,
sharing each of our experiences, it left me with the short end of the
esthetic experience. And, I am afraid it could leave many people with the
mistaken impression that this kind of limited esthetic experience is all
that blind people should really expect from art.

This is, of course, proven incorrect by many other exhibits and projects
over the past thirty years, and especially over the past five years,
including in a number of articles about tactile art by and for blind art
lovers, and a number of exhibits described and projects mentioned on this
list.

Sylvie Kashdan, M.A.
Instructor/Curriculum Coordinator
KAIZEN PROGRAM for New English Learners with Visual Limitations
810-A Hiawatha Place South
Seattle, WA  98144, U.S.A.
phone:  (206) 784-5619
email:  kaizen_esl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
web:  http://www.nwlincs.org/kaizen/

+++

Francine Seders Gallery
6701 Greenwood Avenue N, Seattle, WA, 98103,   206-782-0355  FAX:
206-783-6593

http://www.sedersgallery.com/

*** Upcoming ***

July 14 - August 14
SPIKE MAFFORD

Braille

and

MICHAEL HOWARD

Recent Work


Spike Mafford was born in 1963 in Mexico City. He holds a BA from Pomona
College in Claremont, CA. In 1997, he received the "Golden Light Award",
First Place Architecture and Interiors, from the Maine Photographic
Workshops. Since 1985 he has exhibited his photographs in many group and
solo shows in Mexico and in Seattle. They are black and white or color
scenes, many from his travels in Mexico and China.

Mafford chooses his scenes from an artistic point of view rather than a
touristic one: the landscapes become more a study of a tree or of a cloud
rather than a place - the people are more portraits of an old man or
children at play and could be from anywhere. His architectural renderings
are not always specific - for example an empty courtyard and stairs, a wall
with graphiti.


MICHAEL HOWARD
Michael Howard was born in 1963 in Tennessee and currently resides in
Milwaukee where he holds a faculty position in Fine Arts at the Milwaukee
Institute of Art and Design. His work is mostly small, on canvas or paper.
The "House" as well as architectural construction sites are frequent subject
matter in his work. Rich in texture and color, the canvases are very
painterly and moody

contact
Alison@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for a current show biography
"1025 Howell"

watercolor, gouache, 2003
unfr: 23 x 23"
91-162

+++


Braille art

from The Seattle Weekly, July 13-19, 2005

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0528/050713_arts_vacalendar.php

Francine Seders For the past several years, local photographer Spike Mafford
has been trying to figure out how to bring the aesthetic experience of
visual art to both the blind and sighted. The results of his experiments
will be on display in a new show, "Braille." Mafford has incorporated
tactile elements, including Braille lettering and raised forms, into his
printed photos with the goal of discovering how a printed photograph changes
after being touched by "viewers." Reception: 2-4 p.m. Sun. July 17. 6701
Greenwood Ave. N., 206-782-0355. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.- Sat.; 1-5 p.m. Sun.

+++

from Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 7, 2005
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/visualart/231449_gall07.html

Outside the Square, Spike Mafford's crystalline photos engage the silent
fields around pages of Braille, exploring the idea of touch as a substitute
for sight. He opens on July 15 at the Francine Seders Gallery, 6701
Greenwood Ave. N., with a reception for the artist July 17, 2 p.m.-4 p.m.

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