[Art_beyond_sight_educators] {Disarmed} The International Association for Sight Impaired Artists- Global

[Lisa Yayla]

The International Association for Sight Impaired Artists- Global
About Us
IASIA-Global stands for the International Association for Sight Impaired 
Artists-Global. We are a non profit organization founded June 29, 2012 
by visually impaired artist Michael A. Williams.

IASIA-Global mission is to educate, encourage and support the sight 
Impaired community worldwide to become involved in the visual arts as 
painters, photographers, sculptors and other forms of 2 and 3 
dimensional art.
http://www.iasia-global.org/default.html


Blind Vision
Association for blind artists launches in Memphis.
Artist Michael Williams, who suffers from a sight-impairment known as 
Stargardt disease, may not have the best vision. But most would agree 
that he's a visionary.
In June, the award-winning artist launched the International Association 
for Sight-Impaired Artists-Global, a nonprofit aimed at empowering blind 
artists from all over the world.
The group will serve as an umbrella organization for chapters across the 
country, but so far, it only boasts a local chapter, the Memphis 
Association for Sight-Impaired Artists, which is headquartered out of 
the Memphis Center for Independent Living on Madison.

.....

In 2009, Williams entered his work into the American Printing House for 
the Blind's art contest. He won third place out of 400 entries. In the 
years that followed, Williams took home a second place and most 
recently, a first-place award in the competition.

"After I won first place, I decided that it was time for others to know 
about the opportunities out there for sight-impaired artists and go full 
steam ahead with this program," Williams said.

Williams would eventually like to open an art gallery in Memphis of work 
by blind artists, and the organization has plans for expanding their 
chapters city by city each year. Since the headquarters is in Memphis, 
Williams hopes to host an international competition for blind artists 
here next fall.

Visually impaired artists who would like to submit work for the first 
local art show in December should visit iasia-global.org 
<http://iasia-global.org/> for details.

http://www.memphisflyer.com/memphis/blind-vision/Content?oid=3289020

website
Artist Michael Williams,

http://www.uniquewanders.com/