Sensory Encounter -- Access to Museums and Galleries for the disabled

Every grade school usually has a time for experiencing the arts. Most of us can remember the fun of finger painting: how it felt, slimy and cool to the touch; how it smelled, and some of us even how it tasted. We learned the basics of creativity and how to cover the slick white paper with fingerprint smears in less than five seconds flat

Learning is always enhanced when we stimulate our five senses with color, sound, smell, taste and touch. For hundreds of years, the art experience has only been for the few.  It has only been in recent years that museums, art galleries and nature have been made available for the sensory impaired and the disabled.

My first exposure to a tactile garden prepared specifically for those who were blind was in Minnesota. Here the seeing impaired visitor was able to touch and smell the leaves, petals and stems without fear of being pricked by a thorn. Some plants were there specifically for the tasting. Walkways were kept unobstructed and safe so people could walk, use a wheelchair or sit down to rest.

Unfortunately, most museums don’t allow touching of sculptures and galleries discourage the touching of paintings because the oils from our skin may eventually leave a soiled mark that promotes disintegration. People are generally curious and want to touch areas of sheen and smoothness or patches that look rough even though it may be an illusion. Today more and more cities are opening sensory gardens and museum areas where disabled children and adults may enjoy acoustics, music, fragrance, light, and texture.

(Seeing impaired students are allowed to feel texture)

 From "Magical Gardens for the Blind, Deaf, and Disabled" The Daily Beast, by Elizabeth Piciuto

 “When I walk into the Stephen Knolls School’s greenhouse, cheerfully bright even on an overcast day, the humidity frizzes my hair into a delirious halo. The school’s principal, Kim Redgrave, is explaining the school’s gardening program to me when three boys who are maybe 10 to 12 years old join us. Two of them are in wheelchairs. The third walks unsteadily, led by a grown-up holding his hand. I try to catch the eye of this third boy, but he plops down onto a stool and avoids my gaze. I turn to one boy who rewards me with a giant, hammy smile.

“They are here to measure their plants,” explains their teacher. From the looks of the seedlings in their plastic pots, the boys have planted their seeds just a few weeks ago, and they are growing vigorously.

“Just a few years ago, I hate to admit that in my total ignorance of disability, I would have assumed that these boys were barely aware of their environments. More attuned, I now see how all three boys become absorbed in their plants’ progress.

“Reams of research demonstrate that gardens and plant care can help students with disabilities develop crucial knowledge, skills, emotional regulation, and self-reliance: those with less intensive disabilities, more intensive disabilities, cognitive disabilities, physical disabilities. Even children without disabilities, for that matter, experience the same benefits. 

“Spending time in gardens can reduce the need for medication in children with ADHD,” Sachs pointed out, even after walks that last just 20 minutes.

“As a result of this research, there has been a growing movement to include what are known as “sensory gardens” in many schools for children with disabilities, as well as many botanical gardens in children’s hospitals. Sensory gardens are gardens that are designed not only to be accessible to people with disabilities, such as having winding paths appropriate for wheelchairs, but to “systematically and sensitively nourish the five basic senses,” says Amy Wagenfeld, professor of occupational therapy at Rush University and one of the authors of the forthcoming bookTherapeutic Gardens: Design for Healing Spaces. Such gardens provide opportunities to see, smell, touch, listen to—and sometimes taste—plant life and garden fixtures, such as scented herbs, smooth river rocks, or velvety lamb’s ears.” 

“In a workshop using scent in art, I learned that the same scent can smell differently if given a different label, such as cheese or vomit; or by changing the color of lights in an olfactory art sculpture from red to blue. In the round table "Putting Theory into Practice," several museum curators and educators, spoke about personalizing the museum experience and creating multisensory exhibits. John Bramblitt, an artist who lost his sight, had to find new ways to do his art again by using other senses and art materials. He brought in some of his paintings, where I was able to feel the contrast of a smooth plastic background and the raised ridges of his acrylic paint.

“The last day of the conference, I went on a verbal description and touch tour at the Whitney Museum, led by Danielle Linzer, where we viewed an abstract painting, "The Magnificent," by Richard Pousette-Dart, which we were able to touch after donning silk gloves. I was amazed by the amount of texture I could feel on the painting, which I was unaware of when I just looked at the piece.” 

 Japanese sensory museum http://youtu.be/pCcIbL0AyCo 

Opening of the exhibition "Sensory Journey" , conception and paintings by Silvana Di Martino, photos by Michel Versepuy and music soundtrack by Denis Barbier. in Paris 2011 the 13th of October. at the space Altura near La Bastille.

The exhibition presents a new concept, "the synaesthetic exhibition". What is a synaesthetic exhibition, you might ask? Well, it is a physical experience of sensory signals interacting with each other (visual, auditory, olfactory, tactile and gustative). 

By simulating sensations, other senses are awakened and brought to life. The paintings were meant to be touched and observed.   http://youtu.be/5-f9m40qhlQ

 

Most museums and art galleries have “do not touch signs” everywhere. Try it and you’ll find a docent or guide looking over your shoulder “Do not touch the paintings,” they warn which is why these sensory gardens, galleries and museums are catching on everywhere.

You’ll enjoy this video. “Good Mythical Morning” “Don’t Touch the Art.” \Gotta’ love these guys! http://youtu.be/IbT7xNf9zXQ 

Faith, Family, Community and Work – Nothing Else Matters!

Cute enough to paint -- Amelia the Cook! (my granddaughter)

Have you ever tried to plug up a leak? No matter how hard you try, if there’s a weakness, the water (or air) will find a way to escape. My bicycle tire had a minute leak so small we couldn’t find it; but sure enough, by the time we were half-way to our next destination, the tire was flat. Slowly but surely, the air, under pressure as the tire revolved, pushed out from a tiny hole.

Like air, Water finds the place of least resistance and flows where gravity pulls it. Under enormous and unending pressure, a dam requires constant monitoring to ensure that it holds back millions of tons of water weight. A leak can weaken it to the point of destruction.

Liken the water and air pressure to Passion. If you have it, you can’t stop it! The same principle applies to all living things. A seedling fights to obtain sunlight. It will bend and twist and elongate in order to find its energy source, its power. In the same measure, if you have the passion to excel in your field of endeavor, nothing but your own negative thinking can stop you.

Proud as a Peacock!

A Winter Olympian was asked by a Reporter about competition and how her team handled stress? When problems arise, how do you respond?

Her answer: “We’ve done it before. We know how to do it. We try to stay focused and that kind of takes the pressure off.”

Creative people need to adopt this same kind of fearlessness. When failure or negative thinking wedges itself into your normal routine remember that “you’ve done it before. You can do it again and stay focused!

An Earned Taste!

If you’re passion doesn’t drive you and it isn’t as powerful as your need for water or air, get inspired. Find time to think and dream. Restore your imagination and creativity by feeding your empty vessel. Fill yourself so full that eventually you’ll “spring a leak” if you don’t sing, write, paint or work.

"Dainty Diva" a 20 x 24 oil on acrylic under painting of Amelia a few years ago.

I recommend a YouTube video called “The Secret to Happiness” presented by Arthur Brooks from the American Enterprise Institute. Happiness is all about building your life not your career. “Don’t spend your time obsessing about the ‘great big splash’” Brooks recommends. “People who are happy in their work feel they are creating something of value and serving others.”

Get inspired. Watch this short film:

Kitschy, Kitschy Koo is no Longer Baby Talk – It’s a Meme

"The interior of a Mexican Restaurant" Kitschy or Cool?

The term “meme” has been around since 1976; yet, for some of us, it feels brand new thanks to the Internet. The word, first coined by Richard Dawkins was used to describe the behavior of genes. Later he referred to the internet’s use of meme as “deliberate and altered;" In other words – a high jacking of the original content or idea. #stolenstuff 

Pronounced meem, this term refers to any idea, style, action which spreads, often as mimicry, from one person to another on the Internet. Like a plague or a disease, a meme may take the form of an image, hyperlink, video, picture, website or hashtag. Even an error or misspell can become a meme that catches on and spreads until it becomes popular and accepted usage.

"Kitschy" or Flashy?

I’ve seen it in the art world. A popular composition or theme gains momentum when it is shared and soon there are countless variations or knock-offs from that first original idea. Like rabbits, these alterations spawn additional copycat versions earning the title of “kitsch.”

What exactly is kitsch? In the 19^th century it was art that conveyed exaggerated sentimentality and melodrama or “camp” if it was humorous or ironic in nature. Today kitsch is simply tacky or in bad taste. The word “gaudy” is sometimes used to describe work that is calculated to have a popular appeal. But beauty and worth are both in the eye of the beholder. "One person's trash is another man's treasure," so who's to judge? #Lovemyjunk 

Kitsch is not a new word. Originating in Munich, Germany around 1865, it described any artwork that was cheap, popular, and marketable. That still holds true today. The reason artists resort to kitsch in the first place is because it’s fun, quick, and lucrative. Kitsch brings in the cash and butters the bread.

Kitschy or Catchy?

Critics argue that the essence of kitsch is imitation. The purveyors are merely copying the beautiful and the popular to make money, but the good and substantial part of the work is missing.

Kitsch becomes “cliché” when it is overused to the point of losing its original appeal. Salvador Dali once said: “The first man to compare the cheeks of a young woman to a rose was obviously a poet; the first to repeat it was possibly an idiot.”

Ironically, Dali stole that phrase from Gèrard de Nerval who said: “The first man who compared woman to a rose was a poet, the second, an imbecile.”

"Couldn't resist adding an Internet joke." #nothingpersonaldear

The old fashioned game of “Whisper” where you passed a secret from one ear to another seems minuscule compared to the scope of the “world wide web” of today’s Internet. Like the flash of a speeding bullet, ideas, artwork, and photographs race across cyber airways adding fodder to meme, kitsch, and consequently the trash that ends up in our inbox. #damspam 

The Jewish culture has long had a word for this aberration: “Schlock” which refers to something shoddy, cheap or inferior. In this day and age of information overload, perhaps we should use more discretion in our choices and focus on quality not quantity. We’ve all heard this before, but does anyone ever follow this advice? #turnsadeafear 

Stay tuned for a discussion of an art movement known as “Pop Surrealism” and why some consider this a “lowbrow” alternative.

mixed media -- "That's my Baby"

Build a Shine from Within, or Slather Gloss on Top? Your Choice.

When I first started painting, the glow I wanted to shine from my artwork escaped me. Why didn’t my paintings sparkle? Why didn’t they seem “alive?” I painted a shiny coat of gel or “Liquin” over the top to revive the paint. It still didn’t work.

What I later discovered is that the “glow” comes from within; caused by the differing values and contrasting colors. Coats of sheen on top can never make up for what is missing beneath the surface.

A perfect example of this is my latest painting: “Sunset on the Nile.” A friend had told me she loved painting on grey because the top coat seems to “pop.” I had always used light colors such as yellow ochre or alizarin crimson for the under painting. Experience had taught me that inner light is created from within. But what did I do? I went against my personal inclination and slathered on grey gesso. After all, my painting was an evening scene, and there were clouds in the sky. Perhaps a grey under painting would work.

What happened later reinforced my first theory. The grey under painting worked like a sponge absorbing all the light. No matter how many coats of eye-popping color I placed on the canvas, eventually it got lost in the grey and became dull and dark. I put on several coats of color and glazes to make up for the light being swallowed up by the darkness.

Moral of this story? Once you learn or discover a truth, don’t let fads or someone else deter you from what works, at least for you. Now when I see a lacquered or varnished painting, I’m always suspecting: was it purposefully done, or is it there to make up for lost luster?

I admit I’m not a fan of shiny art. The one exception is when working with metallics. The natural glow of metallic pigment may add a unique and sophisticated touch to an otherwise ordinary painting. Even better is the placing of paint directly on a metallic surface so that the frame and background become part of the painted surface.

Putting a gloss gel or gloss varnish on a painting is almost like placing a glass over the canvas. The reflections are almost as bad, and you must stand in a certain place to avoid the glare that distorts the painting. I personally love the matte finish of natural pigments and bold brush strokes. But it’s a matter of personal preference.

Personal taste is what art boils down to. We all see things from our own prism of preconceived notions and experiences. What attracts one person deters another. Thank goodness there is room for all types of art in the cultural spectrum.