Experiencing some of the world’s most prominent art pieces is usually a visual affair – often limited to only one of the five senses. That, and viewers are usually asked to not touch the works, either.
But, through the work of an organization in Chatham, New York, the blind and visually-impaired are able to take in some of the world’s most famous pieces – including almost every nook and cranny on the canvas.
It’s possible via three-dimensional, tactile prints. Produced by Tactile Images, the prints elevate every face, object and other parts of the artwork, allowing people living with limited vision or blindness a chance to feel out and form a mental image of everything from Mona Lisa’s captivating smirk to the surreal background and foreground of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”
“We developed a process - a process, and then a technology that converts any two-dimensional image to three-dimensional data and once we have that data, we digitally sculpt it out of a large block of material,” said John Olson, co-founder of the outfit. “And once it's been sculpted, we embed sensors throughout the image.”
Olson tells WAMC that since 2008, he has set out to develop the means by which people who are blind can experience art and photography.
Olson has worked as a photojournalist. He was also a wartime photographer at a young age, with some of his most iconic work including “The Marine on the Tank,” from the Vietnam War – a brutal scene of wounded soldiers being treated at the front.
Over the years, he says he began thinking over how to make important visuals more accessible.
Through development as well as listening to the blind community, including feedback from the National Federation of the Blind, the prints have evolved and now make up entire exhibits that travel across the country.
“What our work does - it helps level the playing field and create cultural inclusion,” he said. “So, when a person who's blind is at a museum, they have the ability to open dialogue with a sighted companion about the same artwork.”
One of them is the Seven Art Movements exhibit – a series of prints featuring the works of da Vinci, Vermeer, and van Gogh, now open at the Chicopee Public Library’s main branch.
Laura Bovee is the Chicopee Public Library's director.
“It is beautiful, both visually and by touch - it's really amazingly well-put together, well-constructed,” she said. “I've explored it a little bit and the audio descriptions are really interesting. They've made me think differently about what I have always seen as a visual thing.”
The setup includes multiple tactile prints on tall stands, laid out before visitors who can run their hands across the them.
As Olson mentioned, sensors on the paintings prompt an audio guide to start playing – describing elements of the painting.
Those elements include everything from the Mona Lisa’s clothing to Vermeer’s titular pearl earring.
“Though it appears to be a large pearl, scholars have debated that it could be tin, due to its size and its reflective quality,” one of the piece’s audio cues state.
Anne Gancarz, the library’s assistant director, says the exhibit stop came to be after she set out to find a tactile show, knowing they existed and how the library is always looking to offer more accessibility.
“More than a couple of times, people that I've spoken to in the region who are blind or have low-vision, will talk about art, and say how it's a difficult moment to experience when you cannot see it, because most of art is visual,” Gancarz told WAMC. “So, just bringing that thought of accessibility into that realm, into our library, into our community, into our community room - and here we have it.”
Part of that drive to boost accessibility includes Bob Baran – a legally blind local who has worked as an accessibility consultant for the library.
He’s also come in contact with Tactile Images in the past – including their presentations while at a convention for the National Federation of the Blind.
Speaking with WAMC, he says a picture's worth a thousand words, but for someone with low vision, or blindness, even five or ten words can make a difference.
The tactile prints take that to a whole new level.
“The tactile image stuff also makes it so that people can actually feel the whole art tactfully and some of its actually described verbally, so, it actually gives you the ‘picture's worth a thousand words’ along with some tactile feel of what the product is also,” he said. “So, it's very useful for people, especially students.”
The exhibit in Chicopee runs through May 25. More information can be found here.
