AFB Press

Leading publisher in the field of blindness and visual impairment, with a catalog of innovative and diverse educational and research materials for professionals, service providers, and family members of people who are blind or visually impaired.

New Art Book Challenges Perceptions

Art Beyond Sight: A Resource Guide to Art, Creativity, and Visual Impairment, edited by Elisabeth Salzhauer Axel and Nina Sobol Levent.

What could a blind person possibly make of a da Vinci painting? "Just as much as anyone else," according to Ermyn King, coordinator of the Pennsylvania State University Arts and Health Outreach Initiative. "We use many different senses and faculties when encountering an art work, and it's a mistake to think that people who are blind or visually impaired are any less able to appreciate or create 'visual art' than a sighted person." One of King's groundbreaking projects has been to provide people who are blind with a tactile and dramatic appreciation of a painting by bringing a portrait to life—literally—with performers who assume the dress and pose of the person depicted. This technique is one of a number of diverse approaches described in the 500 packed pages of Art Beyond Sight: A Resource Guide to Art, Creativity, and Visual Impairment, the first book to cover all aspects of teaching art to people who are blind or visually impaired.

AFB and Art Education for the Blind, a national nonprofit organization committed to making visual art accessible to all, joined together to co-publish the one-of-a-kind resource, which is the result of a decade-long international collaboration with educators, scientists, artists, and more than 40 museums worldwide. Art Beyond Sight supplies readers with extensive information on how to render visual art accessible to diverse audiences and provides insight and instruction on how people who are blind or visually impaired not only appreciate art, but also how they can create art.

Art Beyond Sight began as a teaching manual for educators and evolved into a more wide-reaching publication that can be read and enjoyed by educators, museum professionals, blind or visually impaired people themselves, their families, and friends. Because the material that the book contains is so comprehensive and draws on the research of a variety of disciplines, King believes that it deserves an even wider audience. "I think Art Beyond Sight should be required reading for anyone who teaches art," remarked King, "since it offers so many possibilities for approaching an art work."

King often attempts to dispel the myth that devising methods to expose people who are blind and visually impaired to visual art has no relevance for the sighted population. "Not just for blind or visually impaired people," she said, "this book could open up a whole new world of possibilities for sighted artists and art lovers as well. Just like art itself, Art Beyond Sight challenges us to perceive in new ways."

An arts patron enjoying the multi-sensory experience of a living portrait with a sighted guide.

Other Recent AFB Press Titles

Collaborative Assessment: Working with Students Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired, Including Those with Additional Disabilities, edited by Stephen A. Goodman and Stuart H. Wittenstein Early Focus: Working with Young Children Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired and Their Families, Second Edition, edited by Diane L. Fazzi and Rona L. Pogrund Self-Advocacy Skills Training for Older Individuals Who Are Visually Impaired: Training Manual, Participant Manual, Family Guide to Self-Advocacy, by Alberta L. Orr and Priscilla Rogers with the National Agenda on Vision and Aging Goal One Working Group Solutions for Success: A Training Manual for Working with People Who Are Visually Impaired, by Alberta L. Orr and Priscilla A. Rogers