My husband and I rode our bicycles along the paths of Robinson Preserve, sharing the road with legions of fiddler crabs and a pair of roseate spoonbills as a storm front approached from across the bay whipping the sea grapes and palm leaves into a clattering fury. Great egrets and ibis were startlingly white figures trying to make their way across the deepening violet of the clouds to the shelter of low trees and bushes. It was a dramatic afternoon of nature’s beauty that left me thinking about the influence of perspective in the making of art. Why does a pink bird in blue water against green trees make us stop and observe? Why do some people see and stop while others see and continue, or don’t see at all? From where does our perspective spring?
Many years ago, I was invited to spend a day with a group of mentally challenged artists who were creating works for an upcoming exhibit at a city library. I met painters, weavers, sculptors and collage artists but the person whose work affected me the most was a draughtsman named David. David was a timeless figure, neither young nor old. He did not speak and he looked at you without acknowledging your presence. He seemed either completely empty or so full that there was there was nothing that could be added to him. Eating and putting his clothes on were the basis of his outward involvement with the world. Thankfully, at some point in his life someone had given him a piece of paper and a marker.
That day, David sat at a long table, rocking back and forth in his seat in front of a 22 x 28-inch piece of drawing paper. In his left hand he clutched one red and one blue chisel-tip marker. In his right hand he held a black marker. He was a pointillist, and working to the rhythm of an internal metronome he touched down the marker tip with precise pressure at precise intervals, starting always at the lower left-hand corner of the paper and working outward until the work surface was transformed into an elaborate cityscape. He would introduce blue or red buildings as it suited him, giving the drawing a visual depth that perhaps bespoke his own. The pieces took hours to complete and despite the familiar and repeated shape of skyscrapers, each drawing had its own personality, including David’s if you looked closely. Somewhere in one of the buildings, peering out of an almost imperceptibly small window, you would find a smiling face. The staff assumed the smiling face was David looking out at you from his drawing. Perhaps it is someone who waits for David each time he picks up a pen. We will never know and David is not telling.
Sandy French, a stained glass artist working in The Village of the Arts in Bradenton, has a brother who recently lost his sight due to complications from a stroke. He is a photographer. Hoping to come up with inspiration to encourage her brother to continue his work with photography, she searched for information on the work being done by blind photographers. As you might expect, the creative process, by its very nature, adapts to continue.
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Evgen Bavcar, The Flow of Time
Renowned in Europe but little known in the United States, Bavcar lost his eyes in two separate childhood accidents. Of his work, he says, "I have a private gallery, but, unfortunately, I am the only one who can visit it. Others can enter by means of my photographs, but they do not see the originals, just the reproductions." |
In May of 2009, the University of California at Riverside’s Museum of Photography mounted a show entitled “Sight Unseen” which explored the work of photographers working in, or near, total blindness. Photographs from the show were also featured on the Time Magazine website. Douglas McColloh, a sighted photographer who curated the show, points out that “the truth is, these are very visual people. They just can't see. And what they do is populate their minds with images. They crave images the same way we sighted people crave images. They can look at their images by directing our sight at the images and having sighted people describe it to them. As Eugene Balchar, one of the photographers in this show, says, "I have never seen that photograph, but I know it exists and it affects me deeply."
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Gerardo Nigenda
"Entre lo invisible y lo tangible, llegando a la homeostasis emocional" |
Pete Eckert, who gradually lost his vision to retinitis pigmentosa views his work as a conduit. "I slip photographs under the door from the world of the blind to the world of the sighted." Scottish artist Rosita McKenzie feels she can be experimental because she doesn’t see. “Instead, I sense light on my face. I hear the rustle of the wind in the trees or smell the fragrance of the flowers in the air. People ask me how I compose my shots. Well, I don’t!” Gerardo Nigenda, born in Oaxaca, Mexico, calls his images "Fotos cruzados," or "intersecting photographs." As he shoots, he stays aware of sounds, memories, and other sensations. He then uses a Braille writer to punch texts expressing those things he felt directly into the photo. The work creates a symbiotic relationship between the artist and the viewer: Nigenda needs a sighted person to describe the photo, but the sighted rely on him to read the Braille.
Sandy French is encouraging her brother to return to places he has photographed before to capture them again beyond the boundaries of sight. When he does, she will display the before and after photographs in her gallery.
The intricacy of the brain is perhaps the most treacherous terrain that human beings will ever explore. When you consider that each person on the planet experiences the world through the workings of their own individual mind, it is nothing short of amazing that we are able to find commonality on basic levels that allow us to be together as a species. We begin within our perspectives, perceiving the world with the tools available to us. But when our basic set of tools is altered by missing chromosomes, accidents, illnesses or experiences, how we continue comes purely from within the creative self. We lose sight only when we lack vision.
For more information on the “Sight Unseen” exhibit and the blind photographers mentioned, visit these links:
-http://www.scpr.org/news/2009/05/28/628/uc-riverside-photography-museum-hosts-exhibit-blin/
Roseate Spoonbill image from Twinkietown.com
