[Artists-making-art] exhibit

Tue Dec 20 12:58:59 UTC 2011

Heather, you are exactly right and your experience not unique! I grew up with an artist/art teacher for a mom and all four of us kids were so "into" art that we would make the local paper (desperate for human interest stories in a small town in Maine!) and my dad would say:"You kids should paint rocks and sell them to tourists!" Which sounded absurd to us, but is exactly is what is sold in tacky-trinkets shops all along our coast! But more to the point, my counselor from the state said that "blind people can't go to Rhode Island School of Design", which is just the kind of sketching I did by the hour every day. OK. I applied to one of the U of Maine campuses known for graduating successful artists. "No. Blind kids can't go to a big campus." OK. So, I applied to a small college  with an Ivy League reputation and price tag and was admitted my junior year in high school. But when I got there, I found out that they only taught classical art appreciation and art, with no real major in art. I was there for two years, started a family and four children and nine grand children later, I am back to *MY* art. 
Although my mother encouraged me and said that I had a way of reducing a form to it's simplest lines, I am only in this last year picking it up again. I've had more vision loss and my stuff is very different from ten or twenty years ago. But it's mine and I just have an inner need to paint, write or re-shuffle the house. And I hear you about the health problems, they are trying to decide whether or not I have MS or Lyme...what's the diff if your hand shakes??!
NFB has always been inspiring and so is this group. Heather, perhaps our "stories" could encourage young creative spirits to "go for it"!
I worked with a Creativity Coach for a bit about a year ago. Her basic point is that we are all "creative creatures" and brought my attention (and intention) to the fact that I just live creatively....and to expand that where ever I can. People always comment on the colors I wear....maybe they think that's the way blind people dress, because we can't see...or don't have a clue...what we are wearing! Even just that feels good.

Here's to Creatively encouraging all of us and to passing it along to the future!
Patty Estes
Maine
"Attitude is the mind's paintbrush."

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Heather Kirkwood 
  To: An exploration of art by and for blind persons 
  Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 11:23 PM
  Subject: Re: [Artists-making-art] exhibit

        I think it's a lot like what we teach kids about the sciences, or other activities - that vision has nothing to do with what you can choose to do in life, and what you might enjoy. Get out there, try new things, and have fun! 

        My trouble with art as a kid was my art was always used against me. Because I did something that everyone thought of as visual, when my parents would try to get appropriate services for me, my art was held up as proof that I didn't need them. In fact, I needed them quite badly! I think loved ones also used my artwork to deny that I had bad vision. Now, not sure how that works into a lesson, but just saying....grin! I shouldn't have to choose in the sighted or blind world as some sort of way to define my "vision" or lack thereof. One has little to do with the other. I do what I do because I like it. 

        Heather Kirkwood
        Director of Outreach, Vice President
        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 16-18, 2012

        --- On Mon, 12/19/11, Kendra Schaber <Baltimore777 at comcast.net> wrote:

          From: Kendra Schaber <Baltimore777 at comcast.net>
          Subject: Re: [Artists-making-art] exhibit
          To: "An exploration of art by and for blind persons" <artists-making-art at nfbnet.org>
          Date: Monday, December 19, 2011, 6:44 PM

          Hi all, that would be an interesting idea! If we were to do a workshop, we would have to think about what we would want to teach blind children. What do you think? 
          Kendra Schaber 
            ----- Original Message ----- 
            From: Zunaira T. Wasif 
            To: An exploration of art by and for blind persons 
            Sent: Monday, December 19, 2011 12:36 PM
            Subject: Re: [Artists-making-art] exhibit

            A tactile exhibit would be awesome.  I'm going to be in Dallis, and would help put something together.  We should have some sort of workshop for children or something as well, maybe?  What do you think.   

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            On 12/17/11 10:21 PM, ann at acunningham.com wrote: 

              Is anyone interested in seeing if we can put together a tactile art exhibit in Dallas at the 2012 NFB Convention? I know I would like to show some new work. Anyone else care to ship art to Dallas for the week or as much time as we can arrange?  Ann

              Ann Cunningham
              Tactile Art - a creative way to see the world!
              303 238 4760
              ann at acunningham.com
              http://www.acunningham.com
              http://www.sensationalbooks.com 

                -------- Original Message --------
                Subject: Re: [Artists-making-art] introduction
                From: "Lynda J. Lambert" <llambert at zoominternet.net>
                Date: Mon, December 12, 2011 11:51 am
                To: <artists-making-art at nfbnet.org>

                I was so excited to learn of a list for artists at NFB.  I am a retired Professor of Fine Arts and Humanities. I lost my sight 4 years ago.  I had been a painter/printmaker and after sight loss I began making pottery.  After four years of working on relearning to do it non-visually, I am finally back to exhibiting my work in juried exhibitions and just recently had my first museum one-person exhibition last Sept./Oct.
                With the aid of a great cc tv, the Acrobat, I have figured out how to once again do encrusted beadworking, and I am extremely happy to be doing that again. I had just started to learn it before my sight loss. I had thought that I would never be able to do it again, but I am!
                Lynda (River Woman)

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