At the weekend I attended a brilliant event at the British Library in central London for blind and partially sighted people themed around portraits. I was excited to go because unusually there was the opportunity to get creative in response to the audio described works.
The workshop was run by artist Karly Allen who obviously had years of experience because her description of the 2 artworks we were introduced to was comprehensive and very natural.
We talked about a portrait of novelist Hilary Mantel by Nick Lord and a marble bust of King George III by Peter turnereli from the British Libry’s collection and were given a tactile drawing of them both which were printed using a Zychem machine which I desperately want to get my hands on now! I found them really pleasant to feel and although I did need the description to make full sense of the diagrams I felt they were very useful.
After the descriptions we were given a small circular frame and some clay along with some tools and Karly talked us through ideas of how we could get creative. I decided to use the various tools to draw into the clay which I’d filled the frame with and smoothed down. It was hard to get started and I experimented a bit and smoothed it out and started again several times. I kept in mind that the frame would be filled with plaster of paris and the clay discarded to make a tactile relief sculpture so whatever I drew would come out backwards. I cheated a bit and didn’t attempt a portrait as working in this way was new to me and my first attempts were awfully confusing! I decided to do an illustration of a flower instead because as I’m totally blind I couldn’t go back and add to the marks I’d made, I just had to go for it in one go, imagining the drawing as I went. I did ask my PA to tell me where there were some gaps so I could ad a couple of details which was helpful. I wasn’t the only person to take this approach.
We had a break for lunch and then went up to see the 2 artworks in the galleries and discuss them further while our sculptures set.
It was so exciting to feel the end result when we returned and we passed our creations around which got us talking to new people. Before the workshop I’d felt nervous about trying to do something creative again after 10 years of being blind and although it was frustrating at first I was relieved to find that we were encouraged to just get stuck in and have a go in any way we felt comfortable. I’ll definitely be returning to the library for future events of this kind! #blind#PartiallySighted#Deafblind#audiodescription#TactileArt#art#creativity#inclusion#libraries#Disability
