Deciding Who Your Art is For
Jan. 20th, 2011 01:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kestrellI've been doing a lot of book browsing and Web browsing, searching for information about blind people who create art. This is part of
my 2011 resolution to add more art to my life
http://kestrell.livejournal.com/622032.html .
So far, I have come up with four blind artists:
John Bramblitt http://www.bramblitt.net/ ,
Lisa Fittipaldi, author of _A Brush with Darkness_ http://www.lisafittipaldi.com/ ,
Gary Sergeant (an artist from England), and
Esref Armagan http://www.esrefarmagan.blogspot.com/ .
This last artist is probably the most video-recorded and written-about, as he is the main subject of many mainstream articles which have appeared in The New York Times, numerous science magazines and journals, and many videos which can be found on the Internet,such as the following titled
"Extraordinary People: The Artist with No Eyes"
http://www.armagan.com/paintings.asp .
All of these blind artists are painters, which I initially found kind of confusing. It was not that I couldn't figure out how they could develop techniques for creating images with paint on canvas, because in my experience a blind person who really wants to do something can usually figure out a way to do it. What confused me was how the art these blind artists produced could later be appreciated by other blind people, or even by the blind artists themselves after the paint had dried.
This question of how such art works produced by blind artists can be appreciated by other blind people has been niggling at me, and it seemed to be related to something else which was bothering me about these articles and videos.
The answer just occurred to me this morning.
These works are not made to be appreciated by other blind people--they are created solely for sighted people to look at.
This is like the mind-boggled giggles I experienced when Stevie Wonder was asked to present an award for a video game that he couldn't play because it made no gesture toward accessibility whatsoever.
In regard to these blind artists, there seems to be the same idea that it is not about participation--it is about the blind artist performing for the amazement of the sighted people.
I'm really hoping that I am wrong about this, and that there is some element of the art produced by these artists which afterward they can touch and reexperience. If there is, this is not a concern of any of the many academics and writers who have produced articles about these artists, because the whole point of such articles is that the blind artist be shown to be "extraordinary."
I'm not really interested in the extraordinary art experience--I'm interested in the everyday art experience, that is, the way art can be brought in one's daily experience of life, even if one is blind.
This brings up a basic question, though: who is your art for?
When I talk about getting back into creating art, I am not thinking about it as a work of genius which will win the praise and awe of sighted people. Okay, actually, maybe I am just a little--I'm human and I admit to occasionally wishing for acknowledgement that I'm special, and not in a courageous blindperson kind of way. But I also firmly believe that doing something because you hope other people will give you affirmation cookies is usually a no-win situation because ultimately, the only person who can uncover that unique, creative, talented, and powerful person is you. That's not intended to be a new agey self-affirmation: that is a cold hard fact that is easy to say and takes a Herculean effort to put into practice.
When I was thinking about the parameters of my project to learn some new art techniques I came up with a few rules. Rule number 2 is "Don't waste time and energy worrying about how a sighted person would do something" and Rule number three is "No one else is required to approve of my art." (I realize some of you may be wondering what Rule number one was, so I will mention that it is pretty much the same Rule number one I have in all situations: "Let's try not to go to the E/R.")
What I'm reaching for with these rules is not merely to think outside of the box, but get to the point where I can forget that there was ever a box there at all. If I occasionally trip over a box, it's not my box, and I'm totally allowed to kick it out of the way. On the other hand, collecting all the boxes and weaving them together into a giant Wicker Man and then setting it on fire sounds kind of fun, too.
my 2011 resolution to add more art to my life
http://kestrell.livejournal.com/622032.html .
So far, I have come up with four blind artists:
John Bramblitt http://www.bramblitt.net/ ,
Lisa Fittipaldi, author of _A Brush with Darkness_ http://www.lisafittipaldi.com/ ,
Gary Sergeant (an artist from England), and
Esref Armagan http://www.esrefarmagan.blogspot.com/ .
This last artist is probably the most video-recorded and written-about, as he is the main subject of many mainstream articles which have appeared in The New York Times, numerous science magazines and journals, and many videos which can be found on the Internet,such as the following titled
"Extraordinary People: The Artist with No Eyes"
http://www.armagan.com/paintings.asp .
All of these blind artists are painters, which I initially found kind of confusing. It was not that I couldn't figure out how they could develop techniques for creating images with paint on canvas, because in my experience a blind person who really wants to do something can usually figure out a way to do it. What confused me was how the art these blind artists produced could later be appreciated by other blind people, or even by the blind artists themselves after the paint had dried.
This question of how such art works produced by blind artists can be appreciated by other blind people has been niggling at me, and it seemed to be related to something else which was bothering me about these articles and videos.
The answer just occurred to me this morning.
These works are not made to be appreciated by other blind people--they are created solely for sighted people to look at.
This is like the mind-boggled giggles I experienced when Stevie Wonder was asked to present an award for a video game that he couldn't play because it made no gesture toward accessibility whatsoever.
In regard to these blind artists, there seems to be the same idea that it is not about participation--it is about the blind artist performing for the amazement of the sighted people.
I'm really hoping that I am wrong about this, and that there is some element of the art produced by these artists which afterward they can touch and reexperience. If there is, this is not a concern of any of the many academics and writers who have produced articles about these artists, because the whole point of such articles is that the blind artist be shown to be "extraordinary."
I'm not really interested in the extraordinary art experience--I'm interested in the everyday art experience, that is, the way art can be brought in one's daily experience of life, even if one is blind.
This brings up a basic question, though: who is your art for?
When I talk about getting back into creating art, I am not thinking about it as a work of genius which will win the praise and awe of sighted people. Okay, actually, maybe I am just a little--I'm human and I admit to occasionally wishing for acknowledgement that I'm special, and not in a courageous blindperson kind of way. But I also firmly believe that doing something because you hope other people will give you affirmation cookies is usually a no-win situation because ultimately, the only person who can uncover that unique, creative, talented, and powerful person is you. That's not intended to be a new agey self-affirmation: that is a cold hard fact that is easy to say and takes a Herculean effort to put into practice.
When I was thinking about the parameters of my project to learn some new art techniques I came up with a few rules. Rule number 2 is "Don't waste time and energy worrying about how a sighted person would do something" and Rule number three is "No one else is required to approve of my art." (I realize some of you may be wondering what Rule number one was, so I will mention that it is pretty much the same Rule number one I have in all situations: "Let's try not to go to the E/R.")
What I'm reaching for with these rules is not merely to think outside of the box, but get to the point where I can forget that there was ever a box there at all. If I occasionally trip over a box, it's not my box, and I'm totally allowed to kick it out of the way. On the other hand, collecting all the boxes and weaving them together into a giant Wicker Man and then setting it on fire sounds kind of fun, too.
