[Artists-making-art] making art

Sat Feb 1 22:52:57 UTC 2014

Patricia, my friend tried to send you a note but it was rejected by the source as she is not a member of NFB. If you should want to talk with her, I can give you her phone number or else you could send her an email with her address.

I think it's so interesting that you have always made art and had a life-long interest in art. It's so very different than what most people would think about, isn't it. 
She does not have a personal website. This will be her first exhibition of her art work, ever!  She has never participated in anything like this before.

I think the way she is making the art is not tactile at all because she uses a CCTV to do it. That would indicate to me that she is working visually, but she is intentionally making some of the paintings tactile so that people with sight loss can feel the images in them.  She has stargardts disease, so have been very gradually losing her sight over many years.  She has just been diagnosed about a year ago as being "legally blind" so she still had a lot of vision, sees detail and color very clearly, she says.  I would be at the opposite range of the scale as I am about two steps away from completely blind. My sight was lost very quickly, with Ischemic Optic Neuropathy - that means something happened to make my optic nerve swell and shut off oxygen to the brain and made me blind nearly instantly. 

All of my pottery is made non-visually from beginning to end. I have help with mixing my glazes - my hubby helps me with that.  And, he helps me when glazing to be sure that glaze has gone where I expected it to be.  

How did you begin drawing?  what inspired you to begin doing it, as a child? Can you talk a little bit about how it all began and how you experienced it during the process of art making? I am so interested in learning more of what you do, Patricia.

Lynda
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Patricia C. Estes 
  To: An exploration of art by and for blind persons 
  Sent: Saturday, February 01, 2014 2:21 PM
  Subject: Re: [Artists-making-art] Introduction

  Linda,
  wonderful new venues (hospital/therapy settings) to appreciate art and artists and the Inner Artist in each person.

  Does your partner in these two exhibits, Suzanne, have a web site? I am curious how she uses paint in a tactile way. 

  Your "story" is inspiring. My dream was to go to art school, but growing up blind in Maine, I was told that "blind people can't do art"...even though I was drawing with different leads, charcoal, etc for hours daily. And now, as I come back to my art (which had gone the oil on canvas route and now I "stick stuff to stuff", as you know), I have been diagnosed with MS.
  I take courage in your energy and persistence and imagination and that you see clearly the spaces in daily life for beauty and creativity.

  Patty Estes
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: Lynda Lambert 
    To: Heather Kirkwood ; An exploration of art by and for blind persons 
    Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2014 9:10 AM
    Subject: Re: [Artists-making-art] Introduction

    Hi Heather,
    Wish you were near here, too!  
    Suzanne Gibson and I are working on two exhibitions for this year - they are scheduled to be in western Pennsylvania.

    Exhibition Title:  Vision and Revision: Two artists with limited sight, not limited vision.

    Suzanne Gibson:  Paintings on canvas (tactile)
    Lynda Lambert:  Pottery (Tactile) and Mixed Media Fibers/Bead Working (Visual)

    Show one:  Merrick Art Gallery, New Brighton, PA
            March 7 - April 3
            On March 22, we will be in the gallery making art and will have a "meet the artist and demo"
            At the opening reception, we will do a short "Artists Walk Through" of the show for people - each of us will talk about 2         of the works we have created for the show.

        On another afternoon, I will meet with students in the "Women in the Arts" course, at Geneva College.
        I was the professor who created this course and taught it before my retirement six years ago.
        I will meet the class in the gallery.  My discussion will focus on three aspects:
         historical context of the work in the show;
        blindness issues and art making;
        philisophical influences, personal world view,  and concepts that shape my work. 

    The Second Show will be in a very different kind of space. It will be in  Jameson hospital, New Castle, PA in a brand new wing that has been created for urgent care.  When the rchitects designed this place, they planned for an exhibition space for artists that would bring in healing art. The shows change every three months. 
    The show will be on display from April 14 - July 5th.

    The format will be the same for the opening reception, and the artist's demo mid-way into the show's run.

    For both of these shows we will have Braille labeling along with the regular wall text (thanks to the great advice I just got from Ann! 

        We will have a video of the two artists - with their work in progress and showing time lapse of the work being created to the finished product.  For the video we have written some very short essays and poems about art, sight loss, and doing the work.  In the background of the video, you can hear the stories of the artists and the works. This way a blind person can get insight into the work even when they cannot see the work visually.  They can not only experience the making of the work, the finished pieces, but the thought process of the artist during creation of the work.

    The video will run on a loop in the gallery, and will also be playing on small screens in other places for visitors to stop and have a look and listen to the art/artists.

    One of the venues I am brainstorming with plans to have my ehxibition available to all patients in the hospital (that is not yet built) via their TV screen. So even if they are bed fast and cannot come into the gallery space, they can still visit the show through technology.  That is in the planning stages but not for a year or two following completion of the building.  You know, 50 percent of all new construction of Hospitals is including art galleries - this is a new way of thinking about art, isn't it.  People are recognizing that art has healing powers, and that people who are sick and those who are discouraged can be uplifted and even helped in the healing process through experiencing art. 

    Lynda

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Heather Kirkwood 
      To: An exploration of art by and for blind persons 
      Sent: Wednesday, January 22, 2014 4:49 PM
      Subject: Re: [Artists-making-art] Introduction

      This work is so exciting. As you all get these shows organized, please let us know! I'd love to advertise them to my membership if they are open to the public. Wish I was in the areas myself so I could go - grin! 

      Heather Kirkwood
      Vice President/Chief Communications Officer
      Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome Network
      One South Road
      Oyster Bay, NY 11771
      1 (800) 789-9HPS
      www.hpsnetwork.org

      Personal blog: www.heatherkirkwood.blogspot.com

      Search the Web at www.goodsearch.com and choose the HPS Network as your charity! 

      HPS New York Conference - March 7 - 9, 2014

      On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 3:06 PM, Lynda Lambert <llambert at zoominternet.net> wrote:

      I am connecting you three to each other via this email as I think there is mutual interest and information you may each have for sharing with each other.  

      Kirsten and Tirzah are the founders, owners,  and coordinators of the Creative Citizens Studio in Pittsburgh, PA. they coordinated the Touch Art Seminar, a series of workshops that brought blind and sighted people together last fall, to make art, at one of Pittsburgh most notable art institutions. It is a very successful endeavor.

      Patricia Estes  is working on creating blind friendly exhibitions at a couple of galleries/museums in Maine, and she is connected with the National Federation of the Blind, Baltimore, MD.  She recently contacted me with questions about the Touch Art Seminar after seeing the Tribune Review article - so I think she would love to have more conversations with you both since you have the answers!  

      This is so exciting on so many levels! 

      Lynda

      Lynda McKinney Lambert, MFA
      Artist, Educator, Author
      104 River Road, Ellwood City, PA 16117
      http://www.lyndalambert.com/wordpress

      _______________________________________________
      Artists-making-art mailing list
      Artists-making-art at nfbnet.org
      http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org
      To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for Artists-making-art:
      http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org/hkdawn%40yahoo.com

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

      _______________________________________________
      Artists-making-art mailing list
      Artists-making-art at nfbnet.org
      http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org
      To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for Artists-making-art:
      http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org/llambert%40zoominternet.net

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

    _______________________________________________
    Artists-making-art mailing list
    Artists-making-art at nfbnet.org
    http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org
    To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for Artists-making-art:
    http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org/pece03%40gmail.com

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

  _______________________________________________
  Artists-making-art mailing list
  Artists-making-art at nfbnet.org
  http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org
  To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for Artists-making-art:
  http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org/llambert%40zoominternet.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org/attachments/20140201/5a04eb01/attachment.html>