Using all the senses makes sense!
Tactile drawing aesthetics and a blind woman’s drawings of sounds
In the Online British journal of Visual Science, John M Kennedy of the University of Toronto, Canada draws some important conclusions about raised line drawings produced by the blind, giving three examples of work produced by an artist he refers to as EW. There are four points. A) In making work that has raised outlines the treatment of selected topics can be sophisticated. B) Images can be representational. C) Images can be metaphoric as seen in the manner EW depicts rhythm and musical notes around her dance band D) Outline demonstrates that the blind are using these to depict surface edges but also some aspects of perspective, for example, profiles. ‘There is no doubt that raised line drawings can communicate useful spatial information’. (Picard and Lebaz, 2012)
EW’s pictures were created with a raised-line drawing kit (Kennedy, 2009). It consists of a board with a rubberized face on which a plastic sheet rests. Marks are made with a ballpoint on the sheet and a raised line is produced. EW stated at a public exhibition entitled ‘Just Imagine’ which was held in Kelowna, BC, Canada, 12 January–17 March 2013. “Anything which speaks to my senses and grabs my attention in my daily life can be the subject of my drawing”. They are an attempt to re-create what I experience with my senses other than my vision onto paper. These include tastes, smells, touch, the flow of time, temperature, space, emotions, atmosphere, feelings, fantasies, ideas, even my own imagination of colours and light. I often combine several of these distinct elements. She added, some of the questions I am confronted with as I make drawings include: “ What form would something abstract such as ‘joy’ or ‘frustration’ take on paper? How could an interesting taste or a unique smell be best transferred into the form of drawing? How could I best reproduce my tactile impressions using my own dots, lines and surfaces without losing their essence?”
Ew was blind as a baby and had no opportunity to draw her own pictures or appreciate what others had drawn based on visual experience. It is the probable reason in her opinion, that she is so interested in transferring non visual aspects to her work. The images show her art is deeply motivated and motivating . They reveal that representation of many kinds is possible for a self-guided blind person exploring the nature of pictures (Hayhoe, 2008; Laursen, 1990), and they show that pictures, a supposedly visual art, can be rethought as devices for touch as well as vision.
Surfaces, their edges, and outline drawings
Surface, and its edge structure perceptual input in our world and indeed in our universe. Blind and sighted people alike use line for surface edges.
The tactile EW drawings display qualities that go back to the beginnings of pictorial representation. Line is used for surface edges, as the earliest pictures do and for profile, much as cave artists drew, showing perspective from a visual or tactile vantage point. They also deploy metaphoric devices to show what is not visible or tangible. All this has broad implications for our understanding of perception and representation. The dominant theory of this essay is that blind and sighted observers comprehend literal use of lines for surface edges, but they also understand their metaphoric use for other properties, specifically, as when EW has used them for sounds.
Read the Full text...
Kennedy, J. M. (2014) ‘Tactile drawing aesthetics and a blind woman’s drawings of sounds’. The British Journal of Visual Impairment. Vol 32 (1) p. 33-43. Sage Publications. [Online] Available at: http://pec.sagepub.com.ergo.southwales.ac.uk/content/44/12/1349.full. (Accessed 07/12/2016)
