[Artists-making-art] my introduction

[Jewel]

Kistrell,
What an unusual name! I love it! Thank you for the book suggestion; I
went directly to Bookshare and got his books (there are two of them,
one on arts and one on history of blindness in England).

I also do tactile art with ribbons, butons, and more. Have you tried
brads? I use them in my tactile art. they come in many colours, which
I keep sorted in bead organizers, and some even have textures (such as
ones I got that have a velevet texture and some that are glittery). I
have only finished one piece, a dragonfly and flower, but am working
on several others. What do you use as the tapestry blank (cloth,
canvas, something else?) I am trying embroidery cloth now, as I've had
some difficulty with regular cloth taking the brads without tearing
the fabric. Oh, and brads can be used to write things out in a sort of
jumbo Braille!

~Jewel

On 11/29/11, Kestrell <kestrell at panix.com> wrote:
> Hello
>
> My name is Kestrell and I live in the Boston area. I am totally blind, but
> was low vision until my early twenties. Growing up, I was an art
> student.
>
> For the past few years, I have been helping to organize a tactile art show
> for a Boston-area science fiction convention, and it resparked my interest
> in making and appreciating art, so last year about this time, I decided that
> I wanted to get more art in my life. A number of great events, such as this
> list, seem to have occurred during this year. Another great event was the
> visit of Simon Hayhoe, an academic who studies and writes books about
> teaching art to blind people (you can find his books on Bookshare, and he
> also has a Web site which you can find through his Wikipedia entry).
>
> I've been trying different art media, including tactile tapestrymaking (I
> use things like ribbon, hemp cord, beads, and fabric for this), wire
> sculpture, and tie-dying. On Thursday, the blind crafters list will be
> having a class on creating tie-dye with permanent marker, so I'm looking
> forward to that, as it is a lot less messy than using powder dyes and gives
> the artist a lot more control.
>
> I've also been blogging about different resources I have found and writing a
> book about my experiences reintroducing myself to art as a blind person.
>
> Kestrell
> http://kestrell.livejournal.com