Massillon: An exhibit opening this weekend at the Massillon Museum is intended to make art accessible to people with visual impairments.
But it does more than that.
It makes art accessible to everyone.
The exhibit, Blind Spot: A Matter of Perception, allows people to explore 10 abstract paintings using their senses of touch and hearing, not just sight. Through those experiences, visitors just might discover nuances and meanings in the artwork that the eyes alone can miss.
The exhibit’s title hints at that broader purpose. Curator Heather Haden said the term “blind spot” refers not just to a visual obstruction, but to the resistance some people have to abstract art. By making abstraction more approachable and understandable, she hopes more people will come away from the exhibit with a new appreciation.
Haden said the idea for the exhibit started forming more than five years ago, when she attended a Massillon Museum exhibit that included tactile models of four photographs. Abstract art is one of her favorite forms, she said, but her research showed that nothing similar had been done to make that type of art accessible to people with vision problems.
She wanted to change that.
For the exhibit, she enlisted the help of retired minister Barry Stirbens of Jackson Township and his sister-in-law, Jan Stirbens of Massillon. The two, who have been blind since infancy, served as co-curators.
Paintings displayed in the exhibit were chosen from the museum’s collection and represent different kinds of abstraction. They include such pieces as Theodoros Stamos’ spare Phoenix and Richard Florsheim’s Celebration, a depiction of fireworks over water.
The works of art were also rendered in tactile and audible forms, which will be displayed with the paintings along with labels in both large print and braille.
Canton artist David McDowell created the tactile replicas, interpreting each painting as a three-dimensional aluminum model that can be explored with the fingertips.
Turning two-dimensional paintings into three-dimensional forms required thinking about how a sighted person experiences the textures and colors of the works, Haden explained. McDowell expressed those impressions as protrusions, depressions and other changes in the surface of the metal.
For example, intense colors that seem to jump out at a sighted viewer might be represented by a raised portion in the model. Quick, sharp brush strokes might be represented as sharp edges.
The paintings were also interpreted in audible form via an iPad app, which allows users to hear a description of each painting as well as sounds that represent it. When a user touches an image of the painting on the iPad screen, he or she hears sounds that symbolize the various parts of the artwork.
The sounds might be literal depictions of what the painting shows, such as fireworks exploding or water lapping at a shore. Or they might be more abstract interpretations, such radio static or the discordant noise of instruments playing clashing notes.
The app was created with the help of Jan Stirbens and Barry Stirbens, who learned about the paintings through explanatory materials and their explorations of the three-dimensional models. They then combined that information with their own perceptions to choose the sounds.
Essentially, it was the same process a sighted person might use, Barry Stirbens pointed out.
Everyone relies on a combination of information and perception to arrive at their own understanding of a piece of art, he said. “The beauty of this is abstract art gives any one of us the opportunity … to use imagination.”
The exhibit also includes ceramic sculptures created by students at Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired in Cincinnati, one of the sponsors of the exhibit along with the Philomatheon Society of the Blind in Canton and Fred’s Carpets in Plain Township. The sculptures are the students’ interpretations of the paintings, created after they learned about the artworks through the app.
The exhibit was set up to accommodate visitors with impaired vision and other disabilities. Each painting has its own station, with a tilted counter that holds the tactile model, an iPad and other accompanying materials. Bands of white surround the paintings and define the edges of the counters so people with low vision can see them more easily against the gray walls.
There are other helps as well, such as tactile gallery maps at each station and nonskid strips to warn of steps ahead. The counters were constructed at a height and depth to make them easy for a person in a wheelchair to reach.
The exhibit also aims to educate sighted patrons about the challenges faced by people with visual impairments and the skills they use to compensate. Patrons can view the exhibit through goggles that simulate the blind spots experienced by people with macular degeneration, and they can take home guides to the braille alphabet.
In addition, educational programs related to the exhibit and to blindness will be offered during the exhibit’s run.
Both Barry Stirbens and Jan Stirbens said they initially hesitated to help with the exhibit, because they thought their lack of sight would limit their ability to understand the art. “My first reaction was, are you kidding?” Jan Stirbens recalled with a laugh.
Both, however, came to realize that appreciating art involves more than just seeing it.
“We’re talking about innovation and imagination,” Barry Stirbens said.
Mary Beth Breckenridge can be reached at 330-996-3756 or mbrecken@thebeaconjournal.com. You can follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/MBBreckABJ or on Twitter @MBBreckABJ .