Throat - singing + drum clip

I worked solely with Johanna today. She did some talking, role playing, animal imitations, painting, singing and drumming. It was a trill when suddenly, out of the blue, Douglas started to join into Johanna's chanting and drumming. They were sitting about 4 yards apart both immersed in their own song. To me it was totally mind-blowing to hear Douglas's throat and nose singing. The audio treat lasted only for a few seconds though. 

Richard painting

Richard at work

Dec.03.07

When hearing my voice again, Richard smiled and said hi as usual, in this long stretched kind of singing way like Hhhiiiiii…. I asked him if he wanted to paint again and he immediately turned in his chair towards the easel, standing to his left, ready to go. I affixed a glossy black piece he had worked on before to the easel and gave him a medium size brush and white acrylic paint. After he painted white lines for a while I let him use black color as well. After a couple of hours mixing the white with the black on the surface of the paper he got some grey tones. The piece is getting quite painterly now. I guess he had a good time. We departed me saying bye he saying bbbyyyyeeee…;

Johanna wanted to do another SONG-LINE today. She was eager to sing a song for me I haven’t heard before. She had an old Latin song titled “Bandito” she wanted to sing, anxious to start, giggling all the time while shaking in her chair and rubbing her hands or drumming on the table. She started out as she did before with a black line from the left to the right but this time she turned the brush on the right side of the paper and returned miraculously to the beginning of the stroke. The form she drew reminded me of a stretched Zen circle. Then she did sing and drum on top of her single brush stroke drawing, leaving drum marks on the white paper. Johanna was joyfully giggling after she performed her song. Funny, she is really creative with an admirable sense for rhythm. Later on I let her touch some random objects like a glass, a brush, a cap and so on to tell me what kind of an object she perceives. Most of the time she knew which object it was what she was touching. It’s hard to understand the perception of a blind person with developmental disabilities, maybe it’s impossible. I thought I could make her touch a simple object (a water glass) feel it for some time trying to memorize its form and then draw it on to paper; or I tried to let her touch it with the left hand while drawing with the right. I guess she is not yet ready for this. I wonder how a fully blind person pictures the world, someone who doesn’t know what light or darkness means. I imagine it must be difficult to grasp the shape of a glass which is defined by light, darkness and its dimensions in space. What “sees” a fully blind person in his mind? Are there images at all, or just non image associated sensations of sound and touch? I should talk to somebody blind who is not developmental disabled.

 

Dec.10.07

When I got to CE2 I started to set Richard up with paint, brush and paper for the “Sight by Touch” painting project.

It’s challenging to work with blind artists. I see them having fun with painting even though they can’t see what they paint. It must be the movement in space, the sound of a brush moving over the surface of the paper and the feel of the brush, or just the joy of having something to do.

First I did let Richard work on a piece he painted the week before in black, white and grey. He added another linear layer to the piece. An hour later I gave him a new sheet of white paper, black paint and a ¼ inch brush and he started right away applying wet and dry strokes. A couple of hours later he had drawn an asymmetric interwoven pattern of black lines in various degrees of color density. The drawing reminded me of an abstract landscape, very delicate, full of transparency and depth.

untitled by Richard Pimental

Johanna wanted to sing, drum and paint again. But I guess the most important thing to her is not to paint, but to have the chance to listen to the song she’d performed later on. I usually take a video of each song she performs, drums and paints. Afterwards I let her listen to it. If she hears my voice in the morning, when saying hello to everybody, she asks:’’ Are you working with me today.” I usually reply:” Sure, if you want to.” And then she says:” And it will be me”? “Yes” I tell her it will be you on the sound recording. I asked her today if she could sing a song I haven’t heard before and sure enough she had three more songs in her repertoire. Since I still have difficulties in understanding what she is telling me, I mostly don’t get the titles of the songs. This time I did let her work on foam- boards. It makes a different drum-sound then paper or card-board. Each time I work with her she opens up more and more. She is much more liberated in executing brush strokes. She is more self assured and doesn’t ask anymore for assistance, but I still hand her the brushes so that she doesn’t have to search for them. She enjoys it so much; it’s a pleasure to watch her feeling happy when holding the camera directly in front of her hearing-aid of the left ear. There is a little switch she turns before listening to her song. She almost explodes of joy, when she hears her voice. It’s a pleasure to work with her.

She did three powerful SONG-LINES today.

Songlines 6, 5, 7, acrylic on paper

songlines 6, 5, 7 by Johanna Rocha

Richard untitled 1

untitled 1, acrylic on paper by Richard Pimental

Nov.05. 07

Another 4 hour set at CE2. Gave Richard an almost black painting he has worked on before, to rework it, this time with a ¼ inch brush and white acrylic paint. He is building up layers now. Johanna wasn’t at the center today.

Nov.19.07

I gave Richard today a 3 inches wide brush; this time I wanted him to fill up the paper with black color as much as possible. No matter how wide the brush, he always manages to hold it so that the thin side of the brush touches the surface of the paper. That way it took him 4 hours to almost fill up the sheet with black paint. It’s fun to work with him.

Johanna wanted to do another SONG-LINE. I handed her as before a brush, black color and a sheet of paper and asked her to do more lines this time. She did five lines and then started to sing and drum on top of them. The consistency of the color didn’t really work out this time to spread the color through drumming. The strokes where to dry to let the drumsticks pick up some of the paint to leave drum-dots on the white unpainted parts of the sheet. She had fun anyway and the lines she drew looked good as they where.

Nov.25.07

Today I did some tactile experiments with Johanna and one SONG-LINE. I gave her some cardboard pieces; acrylic based modeling paste, spatulas and a color she chose. She wanted green, I asked her why and she simply answered that green is her favorite color. I wonder what she as a fully blind person associates with colors: a person who can’t see light or darkness at all. I need to ask her more about what colors mean to her. I did put some gloves on her, and let her play with the material spreading and mixing it with her hands/gloves and the spatulas. After a while the gloves, paint and cardboard became one, the gloves stuck on the painting and she just slipped out of them. It looked great; I decided to let it dry. On a next piece of cardboard I let her smear the material and then she engraved the paste like surface with a knitting needle. She drew relief like circles and spirals on it. After she finished the piece she wanted to do another SONG-LINE. I told her to sing a short version of a song, but since she loves singing so much she performed the full version.

Richard fell to day, it seemed as if he lost his balance while feeling his way through space and objects. He stood up unharmed, moved a few steps with his arms stretched out feeling for his chair. As soon as he got back on to his chair and easel, he picked up the brush and started painting again a black blob on a white sheet of paper; as if nothing had happened. I was really glad he didn’t hurt himself. When he paints he sometimes has his eyes closed while painting. It looks as if he would be in a dreamy half asleep mode his hand holding the brush frozen on the paper. I haven’t heard him saying more then the three words, which are “hi”, “bye” and “yeah”. Richard is a very nice guy. He is always calm, friendly, controlled and smiles a lot. He understands pretty well what one says to him according to the circumstances he acts or waits. If I tell him that I’m going to turn the paper for him he holds in his movement and waits till I tell him that all is set and he can continue painting.

 

Sight by Touch - first experiences

Oct.08.07

Today I started working with Richard for the first time. He is legally blind and can’t talk much. Except of a few words like hi and bye I haven’t heard him say more then that. He smiles a lot and feels his way with stretched out arms through the art center. He likes to paint and he works with model magic, an air-drying modeling material, with which he forms this kind of white dumplings, through endlessly rolling the material between his outstretched flat hands.

I gave him a sheet of paper and a pencil and stayed with him for an hour or so, to see what he does with it. I guess he liked the sound of the pencil moving across the surface of the paper, since he kept bending forward holding his right ear very close to the spot where the pencil was touching the paper. After awhile I handed him various pastels. He definitely had fun with those, it was a big mess after all: the colors where everywhere especially in his face. I forgot that he can’t see. I felt sorry that I got him so full of colors, but I guess he had fun anyway. It took me a while to clean his face and hands. He stayed calm and smiled at me. No more pastels for him.

 

Oct.15.07

The third time at Creativity explored.

Today I started my first project with Johanna a fully blind girl. She loves to sing and drum. I did prepared two white cardboard pieces, painted them black and after a short drying process I covered up the black surface with white paint using a spatula. Shortly after I placed the still wet pieces in front of her and handed her two one-inch wide brushes. I did let her grab the brushes the other way around (the bristles facing her) to use them as drumsticks. I asked her to start singing her favorite song and to drum at the same time on the still wet white monochrome paint surface. Full of joy she started, leaving relief like scratch-marks on the surface, letting the black background shine through and even mix the background with the wet white surface, resulting in various grey tones.  It was quite exciting to see and hear her executing those pieces, kind of visualized songs (drum-song drawings) or SONG-LINES as I’d call them. I took some short video clips of her, while she was singing and drumming two songs.

 

Reflecting on the project with Johanna and Richard I decided to reduce my creative input to just handing them the materials they’ll need to execute an art piece. I don’t need to prepare a painting surface for them anymore. They both have the ability to create art without my input.

 

 

Oct. 22.07

After the pastel-mess experience with Richard I decided to give him acrylic paint and brushes this time, hoping that he can handle those better without being covered in colors from head to toe. I gave him a “big” 2 inch flat brush, black acrylic paint and a sturdy, white sheet of paper approximately 20x 25 inches affixed to an easel. He went for it leaving black interwoven strokes on the sheet, except of his hands he looked pretty clean and happy after he finished painting 2 hours later. He is very focused and prolific he definitely likes to paint.

 

Oct. 29. 07

I continued the “Sight by Touch” project with Richard and Johanna.

Richard painted again in black on white paper, sitting at an easel, creating irregular black blobs with a 2-inch brush. I like to watch his dedication to paint; I love to see him paint while he follows with his eyes a sound or a voice he picked up in the room.

Johanna wanted to sing again. I told her about the project I wanted to collaborate with her, basically a further exploration of the drum-song drawings, which I call SONG-LINES. She agreed happily giggling and rubbing her hands full of joy, while bending her upper body back and forth on the chair she was sitting. I handed her an one inch flat brush and let her feel where the jar with black acrylic paint was and told her to execute a single brush stroke (sumi-e) on the paper in front of her. “Can you help me?” she asked. I let her touch the edges of the paper and told her to just make a brush stroke from the left to the right. Slightly insecure she drew beautifully a black line with no purpose and no intension. Afterwards I gave her two brushes the other way around (bristles towards her, substituting drumsticks) and told her to sing and drum on top of her SONG-LINE. She performed again full of joy hitting the black line with the brushes and spreading it in small dots on the white paper while singing her song. She has an amazing sense of rhythm. I had to move the paper once in a while to guide her drum strokes into the wetness of the black line.  She did three Zen- like masterpieces today. 

Songlines 1, 2, 3 acrylic on foam-board

songlines 1, 2, 3 by Johanna Rocha

Sight by Touch - introduction

Notes about my experience as a volunteering artist at Creativity Explored, an art center in San Francisco, dedicated to assist artists with developmental disabilities.

 

When I started volunteering at the art center I became very curious and interested in the two blind artists working there. I got permission from the staff and the two artists to work on a project with them, which I call “Sight by Touch”. Sight by Touch is an art project that explores the perception and the creative process of blind artists working at Creativity Explored.

 

Participating artists Johanna Rocha and Richard Pimental:

The project is currently limited to works on paper cardboard or foam-board using the two non-colors black and white. The project is documented in the following notes, images and clips.

For further information about the participating artists or to purchase one of their featured artworks please contact Creativity Explored.