Newsday: Exhibit at the Art Guild in Manhasset Encourages Visitors to Touch Works Created By DeafBlind Artists
Helen Keller National Center and the Art Guild host "Seeing Differently: A Tactile Art Experience," showing art by DeafBlind individuals.
By Olivia Winslow
July 30, 2024
Video Transcript for Seeing Differently Newsday Segment
Broadcaster: “Seeing Differently,” a new exhibit, is displaying the work by DeafBlind artists. Virignia Huie has a story you’ll see only in Newsday.
Virginia Huie: At the Art Guild in Manhasset, discovering a painting through touch, reading artwork in Braille, exploring sign language through sculpture. An exhibit called “Seeing Differently: A Tactile Art Experience” encourages viewers to touch and feel the artwork, connecting them with the perspectives of artists in the DeafBlind community.
Ricky Corey: People are unaware of what people, you know, that are blind can do.
Virginia Huie: The artwork is created by the residents of Helen Keller National Center, including Ricky Corey. His collage tells the story of his life as a blind musician who prioritizes sound over sight.
Ricky Corey: Growing up, neighbors, if they didn’t hear my instrument: “Where’s Ricky is he okay?”
Antonia Isnardi: For our participants, instead of focusing primarily on what the artwork looks like, it’s more about how it feels.
Virginia Huie: Payton Martin uses shells, clay, and tissue paper to make art accessible to those who are low vision or blind.
Payton Martin: [signing] So they can go in and they can feel all the different textures and shapes and then they feel a part of it.
Virginia Huie: Joseph Norton hopes his painting conveys something about his personal strength in overcoming obstacles.
Joseph Norton: I want them to see that anybody can do anything that they want, and be yourself.
Virginia Huie: For visitors young and old, the experience of touching the artwork leaves a lasting impression about the resilience and talents of the DeafBlind community.
Caitlin Barcelona: They are thinking out of the box with all of the creative ideas.
Virginia Huie: You like what you see?
Caitlin Barcelona: Yeah, it’s really good! I hope I make beautiful art someday like this!
Virginia Huie: For NewsdayTV, I’m Virginia Huie.
[End of Transcript]
Original article on Newsday’s website
A musician, Richard Norman Corey — who likes to say “I was born blind beautiful” — sat in an embroidered chair at The Art Guild in Manhasset under a mixed-media collage he created that illustrates his love of music.
The black and white piano keys raised off the surface of the canvas drew a viewer’s eye in immediately, surrounded by photos of Corey, 48, of Atlanta, playing keyboards and drums.
Corey has hearing loss as well, the result of a genetic disorder. While sometimes questions to him have to be repeated, “I can hear music,” he said. “That’s more important.”
Viewers can touch Corey’s collage, or any other work on display — a defining feature of The Art Guild’s exhibit: “Seeing Differently: A Tactile Art Experience,” a showcase of works by deaf-blind individuals, in partnership with the Sands Point-based Helen Keller National Center for DeafBlind Youths and Adults.
The exhibit, which started July 17, ends Thursday, said Lisa Grossman, the guild’s executive director. It features the works of participants in art programs at the Helen Keller National Center.
The center provides comprehensive, vocational rehabilitation programs and draws people from across the country, said Trina Coccarelli, chief advancement and marketing officer of Helen Keller Services, which oversees the national center and its other programs in the region and country.
“We do vocational training for anyone from 16 to seniors,” she said. The goal of the training, said Matthew Salaverry, senior marketing manager for Helen Keller Services, is “getting them . . . into employment.”
Corey’s work features keyboard buttons of various sizes and textures, a nod to buttons on keyboards, synthesizers and organs. Larger circular pieces on the artwork symbolize different textures of various styles of drums.
At The Art Guild on Tuesday, Corey, who has been at the center recently as he looks to “regroup” and move into music production, joined fellow Keller center participants with works on display: Joseph Norton, 23, of Aiken, South Carolina and Payton Martin, 19, of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The exhibit also features the art of several other center participants.
Martin, who came to the center for an assessment in mid-June, stood before three pieces she created. Two include photographs imposed upon a kaleidoscope of color she said was created by pouring paint on a canvas and swirling it around.
Speaking in American Sign Language through an interpreter — Martin was born deaf and has diminished sight because of Usher syndrome, a rare genetic disease — said engaging in art “helps me calm down,” and through it, she is “expressing how I feel and I’m super motivated to continue.”
Norton, who is at the center for training in independent living, stood before his painting of Godzilla wreaking havoc on New York City in full view of the Statue of Liberty. He has gotten a job at Crumbl Cookies through his vocational training at the Helen Keller National Center, he said, work he enjoys. He also likes engaging in the artistic enterprise, which includes digital art and working with plaster.
Norton, who has “low vision” because of CHARGE syndrome, a disorder that affects many areas of the body, said he was “very proud” to have his artwork displayed in a gallery. “I never thought I would have art displayed like this before.”
The art classes at the center are open to all participants.
“After a couple of weeks if they decide it’s not for them, that’s fine. But 90% of the time they stick with it,” said Antonia Isnardi, the center’s senior instructor in creative arts.
Isnardi said she tries to impart how art “can translate to other areas of their life, just by being creative, being a problem-solver.”
