[TAGS] Survey about Tactile Art

Tue Mar 27 20:37:20 UTC 2018

Hi All,
Apologies for the length of this post.
In conjunction with last week's California 
Council of the Blind convention in Rancho 
Cordova, CA, near Sacramento, Cheryl Gleason 
pulled together a wonderful show of tactile art 
at the Mills Art and Culture Center.  It featured 
tactile artworks from several visually impaired 
artists, as well as pieces that were great to explore with the fingers.
Although I hesitate to consider myself an artist, 
I had some of my own pieces in the show.  In 
addition to my smaller pieces of Art Techo, such 
as necklaces and small figurines made from 
polished gemstones, I also had some wood 
pieces.  One was a seven inch wooden heart, 
trimmed with heavy gauge twisted copper wire.  I 
found that I could use twisted trios of copper 
wire to form nice feeling inner hearts and other 
raised symbols with good tactile relief.  To hold 
the twisted wire pieces in place, I used very 
thin mono filament fishing line through hidden holes drilled through the wood.

One of my more popular pieces was my Art Techo 
Starfish, which had a five-pointed starfish I 
made out of a computer hard disk platter and on 
which I mounted a finely polished Brazilian agate 
gemstone.  This starfish rests in a nice bed of 
white coral that is mounted on a base of rich 
red-brown padauk tree wood.  To add some smooth 
tactile contrast, I trimmed the outer edge of the 
wood base with the twisted trio of heavy copper 
wire.  I'm told that "twisted trio" sounds like some kind of musical group.
However, the pieces I was showing were definitely 
overshadowed and out shown by the wonderful works 
of the real artists, such as George Wurtzel, 
whose great wood art most of you already know of.
Deb Kent Stein had several pieces of her works from live forms.
There was also a 10 foot long set of four foot 
high free-standing panels with a huge dragon with 
tactile 3D features, including large scales.

The MACC show included ceramic and bronze 
figurines, large carved wood panel reproductions 
of St. George and other famous brass etchings 
from all over Europe.  The artist who made those 
made them from charcoal rubbings he made several 
years ago, before it was no longer 
permitted.  Incidentally the artist who made 
those wood etchings was a nice but  gruff old 
Viet Nam war veteran who got all choked up with 
joy, when he saw blind folks exploring and 
appreciating his works by touch.  He was 
delighted that, of all the museums in which he 
has shown his art around the world, this was the 
first museum that allowed and encouraged folks to appreciate his art by touch.

Some of the artworks were made more accessible by 
providing both braille and large print titles and 
descriptions.  Since several of you have 
mentioned the difficulties you encountered in 
hearing prerecorded audio descriptions through a 
fixed speaker, especially in a noisy gallery, I 
tried out adding audio description players for 
all the pieces I was showing.  These consisted of 
small audio players you could hold in your hand, 
close to your ear, to hear the description when 
you pushed a button on its side.  Each audio 
player had a five foot long bead tether to keep 
it with its associated artwork.  Of course, since 
I'm really into repurposing technology, I made 
each of these audio recording players out of left 
over talking pill bottle units, and the bead 
chains were surplus tethers from retired voting systems.
Does anybody else need a couple of hundred five foot long bead chains?

I spoke with Ann, and we will try to get Cheryl 
Gleason, of the MACC art museum, to join this 
list, to give you a better description and help 
network in more of the artists from the show.
Cheryl is hoping to repeat the show next year, so 
hopefully more of you might be able to take 
advantage of that opportunity to show and sell your own works.

Sorry if this post was too long for you.
Cordially,
Noel
-
Noel H. Runyan
Phone: (408) 866-7564
Email: Noel at PersonalDataSystems.com
-
At 08:52 AM 3/27/2018, you wrote:
>Hello Fellow TAGS,
>Darlene Darlene Laibl-Crowe shared this survey 
>with me and I hope you will consider responding to it.
>All best,
>Ann
>
>Please share and encourage participation!  This 
>survey is being conducted by a young DB man who 
>is pursuing his higher education.
>
>Letâ€™s work together to support him!
>
>J (smile)
>Dar~
>
>From: DBCAN NJ <<mailto:dbcannj at gmail.com>dbcannj at gmail.com>
>Sent: Monday, March 26, 2018 10:29 PM
>To: undisclosed-recipients:
>Subject: SURVEY: How Blind and DeafBlind People Find Value in Art
>
>We hope you'll help Jon out with your perspective on art.
>
>Hi, everyone,
>
>Please distribute this survey to your friends 
>and colleagues so that deafblind and blind 
>people can take my survey about "How DeafBlind 
>and Blind People Find Value in Art?"
>
>I am a junior majoring in fine art. I am doing a 
>research project for my New Jersey City 
>University Philosophy of Art class. This 
>classâ€™s focus is on visual aspects of 
>appreciating art. It does not include how 
>DeafBlind and blind people appreciate fine art. 
>I am a Deafblind artist myself, and believe that 
>DeafBlind people can and do enjoy art, and find 
>value in it. My project is called "How Blind and 
>DeafBlind People Find Value in Art." I hope you 
>will help me with this research project by taking a short survey. Here is link:
>
>https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/?sm=KncVgIogikXfzudbQIldcAQwO7wzPLDx1o0W4vjJh3E_3D 
>
>
>Thank you for your help.
>
>Jon Gabry
>
>
>
>
>Ann Cunningham
>Tactile Art
>303 887-1713
><mailto:ann at acunningham.com>ann at acunningham.com
>http://www.acunningham.com
><http://www.sensationalbooks.com>http://www.sensationalbooks.com
>
>
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