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