About four times a year, the Maryland State Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped and The Walters Art Museum get together to provide a unique, hands-on tour of one of the finest collections of ancient art in the world.
Thursday afternoon, in conjunction with Art Beyond Sight Awareness Month, patrons of the midtown library first visited a new exhibit at the library, highlighted by works by Mary Drake Coles. An American Impressionist who began losing her sight in the mid-1950s, she continued to paint from memory and by description until her death in 1998.
Afterward, the small gallery crowd walked to the nearby Walters, where they examined through touch reliefs, sculptures and cast reproductions made thousands of years ago by Middle Eastern and Egyptian artists.
John Halley, a sighted Library for the Blind employee, took a docent training course in preparation at the Walters, and carefully described the paintings to the visually impaired clients.
“It took my mind right there,” said David Shapiro, 50, who lost his sight as child after a car crash. “Especially the painting from Majorca. We lived in Spain when I was little and my father was in the military. It?s exciting ? you feel like you are in the picture.”
“We?ve been working for four years with The Walters,” said Jill Rosen of the Maryland State Library for the Blind. “And this is also the largest exhibit we?ve ever had.”
At the Walters, John Shields, manager of docent and internship programs at the museum, led of one of several small groups on a lively cultural and historical tour of Middle Eastern and Egyptian artifacts, and offered the rare opportunity for the visitors to touch several works in their collection.
“When I feel something,” said Leon Ferguson, 63, of East Baltimore, after touching and running his hands over an original ancient Egyptian relief sculpture and later, a cast reproduction of Egyptian queen Nefertiti, “then in my mind, I can see it.”
“What a beautiful nose, beautiful lips and features,” Evelena Cameron, who is legally blind, said of Nefertiti. “This is what those supermodels wish they looked like.”
The tour is part of an international celebration sponsored by Art Education for the Blind, based in New York. Along with the programs at the Library for the Blind and the Walters, similar tours this month are being held around the world at places like the Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery in Prague, and the Louvre and Rodin Museum in Paris.
Ruby Keith, 59, a former assistant principal at Yorkwood Elementary, retired in 1999 because of multiple sclerosis, which is also robbing her of her vision.
“I used to bring children here myself,” Keith said. “This is fantastic.”
