A Lady With Wonderful Vision

.

This post is coming to you "live from the Marion Public Library" where lappy and I are enjoying air conditioned comfort - - - we are having internet woes at home. Lappy is good, but he isn't THAT good!!! Even he cannot compensate for lack of wi-fi.

This is my cousin, Sally Barker, holding one of her blind-friendly masterpieces, "Red Poppy" by Georgia O'Keeffe.

Sally is a lady with a vision - - - and she isn't the kind to easily let go of it.

Sally's vision is to do something to allow blind people to "see" art. Just imagine being blind and trying to "see" a flat picture with your hands - - - if, that is, any art museum or exhibit would even let you touch it. All you would feel is a flat canvas, perhaps a few brush strokes.

There would be no way to tell color, shape, or texture. No way to "see" the art.

Sally is DOING something about this.

She has developed the "Barker Code" for turning artwork into hand friendly masterpieces for the blind to enjoy. Her code uses a specific fabric type for each color, so there will be a difference in color texture. But she doesn't stop there. She takes artwork and turns it into a quilted, textured, Barker Coded masterpiece.

So far she has met with much skepticism like, "Well, the blind can't picture colors anyway"

She has NOT let this skepticism stop her. Instead, she is doing something to help. She has done A LOT to help. She has already transformed many pieces of art into her code, and she takes them to show to blind people where ever she can find them.


This is a close up of a Braille "B" which she puts in the upper left hand corner of each of her pieces to identify that it is made according to the Barker Code. Do you see the three little black puffy paint dots? That's it - - - the Braille "B" for the Barker Code.


This is what the back side of one of her pieces looks like. You can see all the hand quilting which will bring shape and definition to the front side of the piece.


Between the backing and the front she puts padding and other texture enhancers. Above you see a piece of plastic craft card with coarse threads drawn through it. She put this (in the picture below) behind the brown to simulate the rough texture of the dry earth.

"Christina's World"
Andrew Wyeth

In each of the following pictures, the copy of the original art is placed ABOVE Sally's Barker Code replica.

I think you will find them amazing!

"The Scream"
by Edvard Munch

"Starry Night"
by Vincent Van Gogh

"Prosperine"
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

"Icarus Fallen"
by Henri Matisse

"The Flower Carrier"
by Diego Rivera

If you are a quilter (or anyone else) who would like to help Sally turn art into the Barker Code, or if you know of a group of blind who would love to "see" her work, Sally would be thrilled if you contact her.

Sally's e-mail: larrysally at gmail dot com
Sally's web page
On Facebook - Sarah E. Barker, Dayton, Ohio

Now this fun little personal aside to this story: We are a LARGE family. My dad and Sally's dad were brothers, two of 13 Heavilin siblings raised right here in Marion. We have now spread all over the globe.

I have only ever seen Sally's son, Bart, at family gatherings. UNTIL THIS EVENING as I was entering the Marion Library. A young man in the parking lot was watching me get out of my car, he called across to me and said: "Are you a Heavilin??? I'm Bart Barker."

Go figure!!! The very day I decide to make Sally's post, I see her son, my first cousin once removed, in the library parking lot!!!! He was here, just for the day, from North Carolina doing genealogy research on our family.

.