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.