| Ron met a woman who was in search
of a man who might be interested in a big brother role for her son. The
son was a 14 year-old and congenitally blind. After some conversation, he
offered to try and teach him some relief art.
He felt for whatever reason, that with
the boy's total lack of visual perception, he would jump right in with a
meaningful project, rather than bore him with lines and circles. He chose
to do a self-portrait of his profile with the idea that the boy would be
able to feel his face and then feel the reality of what Ron had done with
the piece.
After approximately 20 hours of lessons
over the next couple of months, he was overwhelmed with the results of the
boy's efforts.
It is important to understand that this
boy has never seen anything. Along with that fact, he has never worked with
any tools, per se, including a pencil. Obviously he had some help on the
use of the tools and manipulation of the clay with his fingers and the outline
was carefully guided by Ron. At certain points, Ron would place his own
hands over the boy's in order to guide him on pressure and movement. But,
all of the tooling and texture are from this student's hand. |
