Passionate Focus2014 -- Artists

Constance AveryUtica, New York

I was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa in my 30s. I continued to be independent, but also in denial. With my vision slowly narrowing, it was necessary for me to slow down. I returned to college and received my degree in Fine Arts—specifically pottery, photography, and painting.

Creating art through painting and photography has become a release of positive energy and new-found freedom to feel good about my life and career. Sometimes I feel like I am looking through a keyhole, but I no longer feel restricted when I am painting because I express everything I have seen onto canvas.

Fleeting Lights

Mist Amongst the Fire

Charles Blackwell

Oakland, California

In the past few years I have come to the understanding that my blindness can be useful in terms of creating art pieces.

The blindness pushes me more towards imagination, causing me to play with images that come into my thoughts, some from daily life, and others from cultural involvement and experiences. The process of putting them on paper or canvas is where my blindness actually becomes a helpful tool, pushing my creativity towards the abstract, dreamlike, and making magical realism come alive in the visual art piece.

Jazz in the What Not

Untitled

Julie BrunoHockessin, DE

Painting is as much an exercise in using my brain as it is my paintbrushes. When I think about the various styles of art, my heart wants me to fit into one style, but my vision and brain dictate alternate styles. Trying to reconcile these and make things work cohesively causes me believe my artistic expressions are a true balance of head and heart.

I work predominantly with acrylics but am broadening to include wood and metal. I am compelled to paint historic buildings and preserve their architectural details. I like to keep things simple, but save something old in whatever I do.

What a person can do is more important than what they can’t do or how they get to the end goal. Being a blind painter is about the power of my mind and doing what others think I can’t do. Because I can.

Woodform

Martha Cowden

Dayton, Ohio

I was born in Dayton, Ohio in 1942. I began serious art study upon graduation from high school. I am a high honors Fine Arts graduate of Sinclair community college in Dayton. My work combines hand built pottery with fiber coiling, a Native American basketry technique. I believe texture and shape are important parts of my work and help me achieve a variety of effects.

Easy Does It

In The Compan

y of Others

Stella De GenovaChicago, IL

My visual impairment forces me to let go of “staying in the lines”. Perspective and colors may change because of what my eyes see and makes my style looser and more expressive. I have to work in the best possible lighting, which usually means daylight along with extra lamps and magnification for small areas.

I work with pastels for richness and brightness, and sometimes watercolors for more softness. There is a world of color and images in my head, waiting to be put on paper. Creating art has always been important to me and even though my vision loss makes drawing more challenging, it also makes for an interesting journey. As a visually impaired artist, it is important to me to help people understand that we all have the ability to create.

Self-Portrait

Nora Devane

Streeter, North Dakota

From my earliest memories I have loved photography and, after being diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa 14 years ago, I have wanted to capture more and more of the beauty around me before I can no longer “see.” After my children were grown, I developed a more serious interest in learning about photography from family members who were professionals and through books to learn the ins and outs of manual cameras.

As a visually impaired photographer I have found solace while capturing the beauty that surrounds us. When I am out in the field, I let the world slide away and my camera take me to a place where I feel whole and invigorated. I hope that others also find the healing and solace through my work

Lighting Strike

Rosemarie FortneyMilwaukee, WI

Art is the lifelong process of discovering who I am and my place in this universe.

Light has become a vital element of joy to my being as RP causes more photoreceptor cells to deteriorate. My creations are illuminated by bright colors contrasting/combating the darkness. My brush strokes have freedom of movement, which I do not easily experience in my physical, spatial surroundings due to lack of peripheral vision.

A fusion of techniques—camera lens, adaptive technology—all assist in maintaining my compositional design since I’m unable to view my entire artwork as it takes shape. New-found confidence and inspirational Seeing Eye guide dog, Clyde, helps move my artwork forward—I have a greater desire to create and accomplish so much more than I would have without vision loss.

Eclipse

Charles GroverSan Pedro, California

I have macular degeneration, which takes away one’s central, acute vision. I began experiencing vision loss about twenty years ago, and became legally blind at the end of 1996.Not driving means more walking, with its slower pace through the world, and a more intimate contact with it. The change in vision has also changed the way I perceive what I see and shoot.

I need magnification for many tasks. I use a hand magnifier to set my camera, and I must really concentrate on framing a picture.I’ve done photography intermittently since the mid 1950s, but never with the eye which MD has given me.

I cherish our deliberate and our accidental beauties, and those in nature. I enjoy illusion, and I sometimes try for a little mystery, as well as having some fun.

Lit Riffle

George Hedges

Chicago, Illinois

I have always liked art, especially to draw. However, due to my condition, I didn't think about it until I started taking a watercolor class when I stopped working because my friends encouraged me to pick up a hobby.

I have sold a number of my pieces and been given a confidence in myself and my work that the blind can create a vision of the world that speaks a truth worth sharing. I am very grateful for this.

Abstract No. 2

Barbara Romain Los Angeles, California

I earned a BFA from the University of Arts in Philadelphia and an MFA from Otis College of Arts in Los Angeles. After being diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa in 1984 and becoming legally blind, I questioned my ability to continue painting. However, I have transformed my thinking and techniques to incorporate my physical limitations as an integral part of my work.

I have found that experimenting with color is an important aspect of my work and my color palette has grown stronger as my sight diminishes. I create original stencils to form iconic imagery—as free-hand drawing of specific subjects is often challenging. Gestures of my body replace the precision of my eyes in making marks on the canvas. In many of my large paintings I use text as a weaving of words, creating a complex, layered image where the viewer is invited to create his/her own poetry.

I am now inspired less by what I see and more by what I hear, remember and imagine.

Mother Earth

David SimpsonEvanston, Illinois

By filtering real world situations through the lens of a magical realist and surrealist my art has helped me recover from feeling paralyzed and defeated after my visual impairment took hold in my everyday life. What I once thought were the most important things that I could not live without were being taken away from me. Reanalyzing my life through my artwork helped me see that I still had reasons to be grateful.

Although I had to change the way I worked, I still had enough eyesight to produce my art. My visual limitations caused me to use my canvases as a study in expanding the world both inside and outside of my head. Looking at it magically gave me the feeling that I was now on an adventure into new undiscovered worlds. I found a new expanse of space where I could juxtapose opposing thoughts and feelings to cast a different sort of light upon my situation and bring about new harmonies that had been invisible to me as a fully sighted person.What could be more magical, and more real, than to find and kick up the sparks of the divine expanse within my illusions of devastation?

SaltHouse SugarHouse

Yvonne Shortt

Rego Park, New York

I work with paper, paint, and photography to archive communities and capture transitions. My work is on display across the country and held in private collections. I am currently the Executive Director of a nonprofit organization where I share my art with creative minds and activists engaged in social change.

My current project, Girls In Transition, looks at girls and young women as they go through many changes: some big; some small. It is about the transitions that define them; the movement away from teddy bears and comfort, to loneliness; the slow growth into one's skin.

Bobby Sock

Naked

Red Cup

Frank ValliereGorham, Maine

Raised in New England and schooled in Boston, I explored many mediums and subjects. I have worked for the last twenty-five(forty-five?) years as an all-purpose illustrator, designer, fabricator, and restorer of everything from jewelry and handbags to furniture, gardens and landscapes, vehicles toys, and bicycles.

While painting landscapes I am driven by the combined atmosphere of light, color, shape, and texture. There are seldom people in my landscapes, but their presence is implied by old barns and retired, old vehicles. My paintings rarely happen quickly. They seem to grow over time, taking weeks, months, and sometimes years to reach maturity. As well as being in numerous collections, I exhibit regularly around the country and in international shows.

Finder Binder

Kurt Weston

Huntington Beach, California

As a legally blind photographer I have overcome the challenges of producing and exhibiting my art. My limited visual acuity - total blindness in my left eye and limited peripheral vision, no central vision in my right eye - permits me to see the world like an impressionist painting.

I entered the field of contemporary art with an extensive art education (MFA in Photography) combined with fifteen years of work experience as a professional fashion photographer. After feeling despair with my vision loss I learned to negotiate and use low vision magnification devices. Currently, I am using a fresh perspective with the fashion imagery I loved decades earlier. I digitally arrange my images much like a composer creates music by creating visual compositions of what I imagine with my mind’s eye.

Amid the Ruins