The Art of Being Blind Part 2 - What colour is that?

 

‘Art is a personal apperception, which I embody in sensations
and which I ask the understanding to organize into a painting.’
Paul Cèzanne

I once asked a blind scientist in an interview, curious to hear his attitude towards colour, what comes to his mind if I tell him that the juice in his glass is orange?

When he answered, ‘I have no emotional attachment to colour’, I found this reasonable response confronting. Even with the tiniest glimpse of colour I may see in a bright light, I realised in that split second how attached to colour I am. I may be labelled ‘legally blind’ but my brain and eyes are always seeking out colour and shape – for as long as there are some shades in the colour spectrum to discern, my brain will offer logical deductions to help make sense of the blurry world all around.

Our eyes don't send images to our brain, but rather, images are constructed in the brain based on the simple signals sent from our eyes.

The moment I leave the front door and step into the world of the sighted, the two words that pop up every five seconds accompanying the rhythmic tap-tap of the cane are, what’s that...what’s that...what’s that?

My eyes and brain demand an answer and when no helpful image appears in my mind’s eye, my hands will reach out and touch the ‘what’s that’ and we are all happy again – for a five second interlude. But when the object is too far away or impossible to see because of faulty light- sensitive cells at the back of my scarred retinas, my brain asks: ‘Eyes, please be more specific, I have no idea what that is!’

Pattern Recognition

“Our brains form images based on pattern recognition. We don't see images; our eyes see line and motion, our brains interpret that to attempt to recognize to what sort of thing those lines and motion might represent, and then our brains seamlessly cause us to perceive whatever that object might be.” (Ken Rockwell)

During the day, most things appear in my view as a light something or other, or a dark something else. That’s it – light... or dark? With the curiosity of a child, in a constant state of visual training, nagging thoughts demand to know more than this because blindness is not bliss.

So the light blob or dark blob gets my brain thinking, which offers an internal dialog – “OK, something dark up ahead...near the corner of a side street...doesn’t look like a shrub...or a person...could be red in colour...has a curved top...” I get a little closer...give it a tap at the base with my cane... “Oh, it’s an Australia Post box.”

The guessing game continues like this for the entire time I’m away from home –concentrated analysis between brain and eyes to help discern the environment at every step of the way. As seeing colours does not come naturally, then I ask myself, maybe I am only SEEING through the eyes of logic and not seeing colour at all? Is my view of the world a collection of childhood memories – millions of images stored in my mind’s eye?

The Power of Persuasion

I notice the power of persuasion by the brain to dominate colours when I am shopping for clothes. As I take a piece of clothing from the rack to bring the most direct light onto the garment, my eyes can think ‘This looks orange.’ But when I confirm the colour with the shop assistant, they can say, ‘It’s green.’ And THEN I can see it as green.

This happens all the time. Blue can be interpreted as purple, yellow can be grey, red can be brown, pink can even be pale green. So once the garment is purchased, brain makes a note to remember its shade for the next time I want to wear it.

About 8% of men and 1% of women have some form of colour impairment but I am not colour blind, it is my damaged little retinas struggling to see clearly.

When I do see, I stop to drink in the scene – the cornflower blue of a summer’s sky, the bold yellow petals of a dazzling sunflower, the deep red of a freshly picked tulip, the creamy white flesh of a homegrown apple, the purple sparkle of an amethyst crystal, the hot pink and white stripes on my grand-daughter’s dress – when I truly see these things, my heart feels as if I am the luckiest person alive!

Why would I care so deeply about seeing colour, isn’t the memory of colour enough? But as with the delicate scent of a rose, I can hold fond memories of its sweet fragrance but it is only when I smell it again, that it triggers the memory.

So it is for me with colour: I am still a visual person at heart and even as sight fades, my brain will have to work a little harder and keep pestering my ailing eyes to ‘Please be more specific...’

“Mere colour, unspoiled by meaning, and unallied with definite form,
can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways.”
Oscar Wilde

What’s it like to be a visually impaired artist whose color differentiation is fading?

Here is a piece written by Stella De Genova, a friend in the USA, who has not let her vision-impairment diminish her love and joy of painting. I admire her enthusiasm as she experiments with her visual interpretations of colour and shape through concepts and feelings.


“Frustrating may be the first word that comes to mind but I’m not going to be that hard on myself.  I take this as a new opportunity to break the rules and color outside of the lines.

Depending on the time of day or lighting, colors change and may or may not be so apparent. And that’s for people with good vision. If you look at something long enough, you’ll see, more than one color in just about anything. And you can paint white snow or a white vase without even using white paint.

So try as I may, I don’t always get it right, which is OK because it makes for new interpretations of everyday life.  It makes me smile when the art instructor critiques my piece and says, “Green usually works better in skin tones than blue but that really worked for you.” Little does she know that I thought I did use green!

Of course, if I start out really wanting something to be accurate, I’ll ask someone for the correct colors but as the picture takes its own shape and I keep adding new layers, the colors tend to change.

Yes, when this new aspect of my vision loss started, it was frustrating but I’m learning to be less of a perfectionist and, ultimately, that means I have the freedom to have more fun.

Stella M. De Genova was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She is a visually-impaired artist who has had RP from childhood. Her impairment takes her on a continuous journey with life and her artwork. Her favourite pieces are those that have taken on a life of their own.  Rather than trying to replicate the style of a fully-sighted artist, Stella uses her visual impairment as another tool for creativity and discovery, resulting in her own unique style.

To view or purchase Stella’s artwork visit:
http://artbystelladg.com/

Dream Under a Desert Sky

Next post: Insight through sound
©  2013 Maribel Steel

The Art of Being Blind Part 1 - A Matter of Survival

 

‘It's incredible what you can do if you just learn to do it in a different way.

It's all about always knowing where things are.’

Jessica Watts

The saying may warn that familiarity breeds contempt but let me assure you, any blind or vision-impaired person will advise, familiarity breeds contentment!

You see, the need to have our homes and work place with some sort of order is not the sign of a control freak or bossy-boots (although my family may place me in one of these categories), it is a matter of survival. When a person lacks the sense of sight, it is a natural characteristic for the blind person to keep their belongings in order because it minimises deep stress on a daily basis.

 Familiarity is everything for me as a vision-impaired person because it not only helps me to function calmly, knowing that nothing has moved from where I last put it, but it also gives me the confidence to maintain a good sense of independence.

Everything in its place

OK, so keeping my things in order is relatively simple for me to achieve, having my own ‘filing’ system for hundreds of items placed in their exact spot in every single room of our house. Yes, I really do mean exactly, to the very inch. But what must it be like for my sighted family who have to learn my filing system?

Not easy. Maybe annoying, but I say ‘character building’! From a very early age, my children had to put their toys away or mummy would simply crush them accidentally under foot – a pretty good reason to keep things in place.

These days, I live in a home that is also a recording studio. So, when musicians book into our studio for a session, most of the living areas become taken up with drums, large bass guitars, valuable violins, microphones galore and masses of leads strewn over the floor, connected to the recording booth.

Before I came to live here with Harry, no one cared where anyone put anything. But it is interesting to observe how we can change our patterns of behaviour when we really need to. Harry now tells his clients, "Please pick up your things and put them in the corner. My partner is vision-impaired and she could trip over your instruments."

Suddenly, everyone becomes very aware. Aware of where they are putting their things – ah, I love it. Welcome to my world!

Confidence can vanish in a flash

Yet life is not always so predictable – and people are not perfect: someone has forgotten to close a cupboard drawer, left a chair out from the table, parked their bike in my way on the veranda, left a glass of water on the piano, hidden the TV remote, shifted the back door key, moved the gas lighter or given the peeler a new place to reside – until I find it again after searching for ages, crippled with tears, and bang the drawer shut in frustration.

My happiness and strength to function with sighted people depends on order and the consideration of others, because if I allow chaos to creep into my system, not only do I accumulate a collection of physical bruises but confidence can vanish in a flash. 

I have good and bad days, like anyone else. On a good day, I can take the knocks and frustrations in good humour, laugh it off, be generous to my family for forgetting my filing system but on those bad days, when it just feels too hard, when life hurts because of not being able to see, when all you want is to live a normal life with vision to see the current task, on those ‘being-hard-on-yourself-days’ is when I need a sense of familiarity more than ever.

Frustration brings insight

I would like to share the following story by Jeff Flodin, a cyberspace-friend from USA who writes a blog ‘Jalapeños in the oatmeal, digesting vision loss’. Jeff’s honest accounts of his experiences make me cry, cringe or break into a broad smile – as in the case of this next story: as Jeff’s wife says, ‘Go get ’em, Tiger’.

***

Springtime means gardening. My wife prunes her peony bush. I plant pansies.

‘Oh, dear,’ says my wife, ‘you’re planting the pansies upside-down.’

I throw down my trowel. ‘That’s it! I can’t take this blindness anymore! I’m outta here.’

‘Where are you going?’ asks my wife.

‘To the garage. To find that wood handle I broke off the push broom. To carry it into the alley and smash it to smithereens.’

‘Go get ’em, tiger,’ says my wife.

It takes me a while but I find the broom handle. I tap my way to the alley. I’m just about to bash it against the asphalt when I think, What if a splinter flies up and sticks in my eye?

I storm through the back yard. My wife asks me where I’m headed this time.

‘To get my sunglasses,’ I say.

She tells me it’s overcast.

I tell her it’s not the sun I need to protect my eyes from.

Upstairs, I fish around my dresser drawer. I find my Swiss Army knife and my baseball cap. Finally, I find my sunglasses. I storm across the back yard again.

‘Go get ‘em, Mr Cub!’ calls my wife.

Back in the alley, I can’t find where I left that broom handle. ‘All right, who stole my stick?’ I holler to no one in particular. And no one answers. I grope here and there but come up empty-handed. Then I think maybe I’ll go ask my wife to help me find the stick so I can smash it – and then I ask myself, How ridiculous am I willing to appear here?

Besides, I’ve pretty much simmered down. The urge to kill has been removed.

I mosey into the back yard.

My wife says, ‘I didn’t hear the crack of the bat out there, Slugger.’

‘I’m back,’ says I. ‘I want to plant pansies. The ones that say ‘Plant Other end.’

Jeff was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa at age 35.  His vision loss did not prevent him from moving around the country; he has lived in Rockford, Tempe, Philadelphia and Chicago.

His book, Jalapenos in the Oatmeal and Other Recipes for Digesting Vision Loss, will be published this year by Aquitaine Media Group of Chicago.

Jeff’s blog:  http://jalapenosintheoatmeal.wordpress.com/

Next post: Do I really see colour or is my brain scanning childhood memories for logical deductions ? 

©  Maribel Steel 2013