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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#1F497D">Susan,</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#1F497D">Thank you so much for sharing this. It really lifted my spearits.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#1F497D"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; color:#1F497D">Susie</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif"">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Tahoma","sans-serif""> Home-on-the-range [mailto:home-on-the-range-bounces@nfbnet.org]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Dianne Hemphill<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, December 30, 2013 9:39 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> NFB of Kansas Internet Mailing List<br>
<b>Cc:</b> Jayhawk Chapter list, Lawrence, Kansas<br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Home-on-the-range] Lawrence Journal-World: Gift Gets Legally Blind Artist to Take Up Brushes Again</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">...thanks for sharing this Susan - I've just recently begun working (playing) with some art forms and have found, to my surprise, how much I enjoy the whole process of thinking about, designing and allowing the creative process to unfold...this
guy sounds like someone the NFBK might want to contact - it sounds like his philosophy about losing his sight is already one that parallels with ours. Dianne</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal">On Dec 27, 2013, at 8:16 PM, Susan Tabor wrote:</p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><a href="http://LJWorld.com">LJWorld.com</a><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>| Gift gets legally blind artist to take up brushes again</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""><a href="http://LJWorld.com">LJWorld.com</a></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Gift gets legally blind artist to take up brushes again</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">December 26, 2013</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">John Parkinson is a bit embarrassed with one detail of a painting in the living room of his Hancuff Place apartment.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“Do you notice anything about that painting? It’s not like those,” he said, waving his hand to two of his paintings hanging on opposite walls of his apartment.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“There’s no mountain. I forgot to paint it in. I’m going to call the painting ‘Mystery Mountain.’ If people ask where is the mountain, I’ll tell them that’s</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">the mystery.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">The paintings on the wall were done long ago, when the 57-year-old Parkinson painted regularly and before he was considered legally blind. Eight years</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">ago, a stroke following quadruple bypass surgery left him with limited sight.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“If you were to take a pair of glasses, coat the lens with Vaseline and look through them, that’s basically what I can see,” he said. “I’ve got a TV. I</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">can’t see much, but I can see the colors.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">He’s painting again because of the gift of an easel in October from two fellow Hancuff Place residents, Bob Goulet and Mike Moran. The two men had seen</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">the paintings in Parkinson’s apartment and wanted to motivate him to take up the brush again.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“We wanted him to quit watching TV all day,” Moran said. “He used to be a painter. We wanted to get him started again.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Parkinson said he had been involved with art since he was a child, growing up in San Diego, Calif. His drawings of World War II aircraft are in the collection</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">of the San Diego Air and Space Museum, and he started painting oils in 1977, he said.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">He shared an interest in hobbies with this father, applying his artistic talent to model trains and the radio-controlled airplanes they built, Parkinson</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">said.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">About 20 years ago, he built a dollhouse for his daughter, Jenifer. After adding furniture and wallpaper, he noticed one thing was missing.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“There wasn’t any paintings on the wall,” he said. “So I decided to paint some. It turns out there is the International Guild of Miniature Artisans. I</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">joined and started doing miniature paintings. It absolutely took off.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">He sold 1-inch by 2-inch miniature paintings on eBay, getting a thrill about how the bidding price would skyrocket in the last 30 minutes, Parkinson said.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">His most noteworthy placement was a 2-inch by 4-inch painting of the Titanic in a museum in England.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">He’d thought about starting to paint again in recent years, Parkinson said. When Moran and Goulet gave him the easel, he decided there were no more excuses.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">He enlisted his daughter Jenifer Waters of Baldwin City, the same daughter for whom he had built the dollhouse years ago, to help him shop for art supplies</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“I went down the aisle, saying ‘I need cadmium yellow and yellow ochre.’ She’d hand me brushes, and I’d tell her ‘I need one with stiffer bristles than</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">that,’” he said.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">That same retained knowledge allowed him to paint despite his limited vision.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“I can’t see, but I can see up here,” Parkinson said, tapping his head. “I can do it because I’ve been doing it for 30 years. I know what I’m doing.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Waters said Goulet and Moran’s gift has meant more than painting to her father.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“He’s received a really good reaction,” she said. “It’s definitely lifted his spirits. I think it’s given him more confidence in himself, too.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Parkinson said returning to painting reinforced a lesson he learned when, after his stroke, he was placed in a room at a rehabilitation facility with a</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">man in his mid-20s with severe cerebral palsy.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif""> </span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“I realized he had a disability,” he said. “What I have is an inconvenience. I was pretty down after the stroke, but I think that was God’s way of telling</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">me to quit feeling sorry for myself and get on with it.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Parkinson is ready to move ahead with this painting.</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">“My next painting’s going to be of a barn,” he said. “It’s based on one of my miniatures. It’s a big barn. Big enough for farm equipment and everything.”</span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"">Originally published at:<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2013/dec/26/gift-gets-legally-blind-artist-take-brushes-again/">http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2013/dec/26/gift-gets-legally-blind-artist-take-brushes-again/</a></span></p>
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