Visual Arts and The Expanded Core Curriculum This video is posted online with the following chapter markers: Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Does Art Matter? Chapter 3. Benefits of Arts Instruction Chapter 4. Visual Arts in the Classroom Chapter 5. Art Appreciation Chapter 6. Creating Art Chapter 7. Resources Description of graphical content is included between Description Start and Description End. Transcript Start Chapter 1. Introduction [Silence] Scott: Hi, everybody. Sorry about the delay. We had some technical difficulties here in the studio, but I think we got those all resolved. Anyway, this is visual arts and expanded core curriculum. I'm Scott Baltisberger, V-I Consultant with T-S-B-V-I Outreach Programs. And with me, here, I've got Chrissy Cowan also from Outreach, and Gretchen Bettes, who is the T-S-B-V-I Art Teacher. Gretchen: Hi. Chrissy: Hello. Scott: So... I'm really glad everybody could join us today. So... basically, this program or this -- looking at the arts is something new, I think, for Outreach to do. We haven't really addressed this in a lot of deltail. And I had a real interest in it because I had a background, before I became a T-V-I, I was an art major in college. So I got really interested in it. And when I was a T-V-I, working in the field, it was a real important thing to me to make sure my kids were included in those classes. Umm... so let's just dive into it here. Let's go look at our next slide. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Introduction Content: Why are a bunch of teachers of students with visual impairment sitting around talking about visual arts? Shouldn’t we be spending our time addressing a more critical issue like math or technology? Description End: So what are we doing here talking about this? You know, shouldn't we be spending more time addressing so‑called critical issues like math or technology? I guess you can figure where my opinion falls on this, but I'd be glad to hear from you guys. If you have a different idea or you have a similar experience, we'd love to hear back from you. So as always, our webinars are interactive affairs, and if you would like to comment, please write in the comments or unmute your mic and feel free to speak right up. So let's move on to our next slide. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Agenda Content: • Does arts instruction matter? Rationale for incorporating art instruction for BVI students • Topics and issues – General areas for discussion • Determine level of interest in this topic and possible directions for further exploration. Questions, comments, ideas. Description End: And this is our -- this will be our agenda for today. What I wanted to do was just talk about arts instruction and talk about, you know, what is the rationale for... for including kids in -- including our blind and visually impaired kids in arts instruction, to talk about... some of the general topics and issues that are around this, and see if there's any interest out there, among you guys in the field, about exploring this a little bit further. So that's what we'll be doing today. [ Slide end: ] When I was -- when I was looking at -- when I was trying to design this webinar, I kind of started thinking about, okay, we can talk about... adaptive materials or adapted curriculum. I thought about... you know, the research that shows whether art is important for children, whether it's important for children who are blind, visually impaired. So there are all different aspects of it. Then you've got aspects, as far as like... talking about, you know, creating art and appreciating art, so there's a lot of different things. So I really wanted to with use this webinar just to kind of talk about it in general, you know, raise some of the issues and see what you guys out there think about it. Okay. So let's move on to slide number 3. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Why “Visual Art”? Content: • Performing arts - Drama, dance and (especially) music are seen as accessible or even a strength. • Two-dimensional art - Painting, drawing, sculpture, print-making, photography are often seen as inaccessible or inappropriate. Description End: Why visual art? We're talking about visual art for people who are visually impaired. It seems like -- what's the word for it? Oxymoron. Oxymoron. Thank you Chrissy. So... I guess in my experience, you know, the performing arts has been seen as being a little more accessible for our kids. And the two‑dimension arts, painting, drawing, sculpture, not so much. Let's look at the next slide. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 1 Photograph of Jose Feliciano Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jos%C3%A9_Feliciano_6_(Repetities_1970- 02-26_Grand_Gala_du_Disque_Populaire).jpg . Description End: So everybody know who that is? Who's that? Gretchen: Brian Wilson? [ Laughter ]. Chrissy: Felic... Jose Feliciano. [ Slide end: ] Scott: Jose Feliciano, of course "Feliz Navidad," and all that. Yeah, very famous visually impaired musician.So everyone's heard of him, or just about everyone... besides Gretchen. Let's look at the next slide. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 2 Photograph of Henri Matisse cutout, La Gerbe (The Sheaf), Reference: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomspix/6059309027 Description End: Okay... Who's this? This is Henri Matisse. Do people know that Henri Matisse had a visual impairment? Gretchen: I didn't know that. Scott: Yeah, perhaps not. Henri Matisse experienced macular degeneration as he got older. Which was one reason he did this -- these works. They -- cutouts. Let's look at our next slide. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 3 Photograph of Ray Charles sitting at a piano, singing into a microphone. Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ray_Charles_(1967).png Description End: Here's another famous person. Everybody knows this guy. Who's that? Chrissy: Ray Charles. Scott: Yes. That is Ray Charles. Everyone knows Ray Charles is one of our greatest musicians, and everybody knows he is blind. But what about our next slide? [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 4 Painting (Weeping Willow) by Claude Monet. Reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Monet#/media/File:Claude_Monet_Weeping_Willow.jpg Description End: What about this guy? Claude Monet. Did you know Claude Monet had cataracts? And... and they attribute his very distinctive style to the type of his visual impairment. Chrissy: I didn't know that. Scott: Yeah. We've all learned something new already. Let's move on to the next slide. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 5 Photograph of Stevie Wonder singing into a microphone. Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stevie_Wonder_1973.JPG Description End: Here's another famous guy. Now, who is this? Stevie Wonder. Chrissy: Oh. With facial hair. Scott: Yes. It is Stevie Wonder with facial hair. Everybody knows him, like... like Ray Charles and Jose Feliciano, very well‑known, very influential musician. But let's look at our next visual artist. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 6 Painting by Vincent van Gough, Wheatfield with Crows, oil on canvas 101x50, cm Auvers june 1890. Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_Vincent_Van_Gogh.jpg Description End: Anybody recognize this style? Chrissy: The guy with the ear. Van Gogh. Scott: Yes, the guy with the ear -- or without the ear. Vincent Van Gogh. Chrissy: He only had one ear. Gretchen: He could still -- he could hear though, right? [ Laughter ] Chrissy: He may have been deafblind. [ Laughter ] Scott: Okay. Well that -- yeah, he may have been deafblind at that point, but, yes, he... Vincent Van Gogh had -- apparently had glaucoma. He complained of visual problems throughout his life. [ Slide end: ] Gretchen: I see. I didn't realize that. Scott: And so, he saw halos... around things. So if you look at his work... Gretchen: That makes sense... Scott: ... that may have had -- it had a great influence. Anyway, the point is, that these guys were... artists -- visual artists and they all had visual impair -- there's a lot more. There's lots, lots, more; and this isn't even going into things like sculpture and three-dimensional art. Gretchen: Exactly. Scott: This is just visual art. Umm... so, I'm not trying to say, you know, with this webinar that we don't need to talk about music or talk about drama, I just wanted to narrow it down and talk about, kind of what we call -- we would think of as -- what you would learn in a high school class as visual arts -- or an elementary classroom. Chapter 2. Does Art Matter? So, let's move on to our next slide. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Is art appropriate or does it even matter? Description End: So, is art appropriate or does it even matter? You know, is two-dimensional -- are two‑dimensional types of art appropriate for kids who are blind or visually impaired? You know, I -- [ Slide end: ] when I first started out, I was told that using a lot of representational art that could be transcribed into two‑dimensional work, would be doing a disservice to kids, because a blind student experiences differently, you know. So, a picture of -- a raised line drawing doesn't give the same information that we would get from a picture. Gretchen: Right. Scott: So it was really... not appropriate. But if you consider the purposes of art, you know, what it's used for. You don't necessarily need to have... the same image represented, but I think learning to understand... symbolism -- learning to understand... composition applies very well. But let me -- let's go on to the next slide. I want to talk about what made an impression to me. That's why what really came to me was on slide number 11 [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 7 Cartoon image of "McGruff the Crime Dog"; McGruff ROI Dog to the Rescue. Reference: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/2203319975 Description End: -- yeah. So do any of you out there recognize this guy? Gretchen: McGruff. Yes! That is McGruff, the anticrime dog. Gretchen: Yes. Scott: Yes. So McGruff... McGruff was part of a DARE program, the -- DARE was an acronym, it was an anti-drug program. And it was given out to kids back in like the '80s and '90s. They still may be around, I'm not sure. But anyway, I had a student at the time, he was in third grade, he was a blind student, and they were giving out this pamphlet to all the kids in class, for DARE. And up... and up in the corner of the pamphlet, there was a dog. And the dog, when you flipped it, and.... it would move. Well, you guys remember what a flip book is. You know, you take the pages of a flip book, and you turn them, and there's a picture on each page and it makes the image move. So this guy, McGruff, was on the edge of the page, you'd flip it and the dog would dance around or put handcuffs on a drug dealer or something -- I don't know what he did -- he moved. And so, I didn't put it on there, because I thought, you know, there's no point doing this for this kid, cause it's not going to move. [ Slide end: ] A tactile image doesn't have the same properties as a visual image. I'm going to save everybody a lot of trouble, and not put it on there. So, the next day, when I went in, Wayne was like, "You know, that was really -- I got my book, and I didn't have -- I didn't have this dog up in the corner." I said, 'Well, you know, Wayne, let me explain to you why that is. Actually, I did you a big favor by leaving that out, [ Laughter ] because, you know, the tactile experience of it would be different than the visual experience." He was like, "Yeah, but, you know, everybody else in the classroom had that picture, and everyone else was talking about it." He said, "I understand it wouldn't move like everybody's, but I would have liked to have been a part of it. I wanted -- I would have like to have been a part of it. I would like to have something to show everybody. Chrissy: Oh! Scott: And so, you know, that's when I... I really understood, you know, thanks to Wayne's helpful explanation, that... in the... that art is not just about them... experiencing it the way we would, visual people would. There's a whole sort of different component to it. There's a whole social aspect to it, you know. There's a whole early learning aspect to it, that if we don't provide it to the kids, we're sort of robbing them of that, and not making the full school experience accessible to them. So, let's move on. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Teaching to the Tests Content: • Marginalization of arts programs in general education in favor of “academics”. • Is marginalization reflected in BVI education as well? Description End: So, next, why is art generally marginalized? Because, when I was out there as a T-V-I, there were a lot of things that -- that experience with McGruff was real common to me. I mean, I had a lot of people tell me -- you'll get worksheets for students or you'll have students be given art projects, and people would say, "Well, it's not appropriate for a blind or visually impaired student. Just have them do something alternative." And... and that seemed to be a pretty common approach. And sometimes you would get -- say -- a student would get -- you'll get a work sheets, and it would say, "Oh, draw a picture of your family." So you would do that, they'd do that, but maybe the alternative thing for your student -- your blind student -- your braille student would be for him to write everybody's name down. You know, write daddy, mommy, you know, brother, blah, blah. And, you know that's cool, that's an alternative assignment, but it really doesn't do what everybody else is doing; Gretchen: Exactly. Scott: And it really sets them apart from everyone else, and it really takes that whole sort of creative activity out of their school day. [ Slide end: ] I mean, I think that, you know -- talk about teaching to the test -- back up... back up... back up to the slide before. Yeah. So... in general, I mean, we talk about art instruction in general; in general education, it's been very, very marginalized. What's the first thing to go, when they run out of money? It's going to be art, you know, P-E... Gretchen: Yeah, it's P-E, too. Scott: Yeah. Those are always the first to go because those are not tested. They're not on the STAAR test, so they take them out. And I think, you know, there's been this real push toward STEM classes, you know, math, sciences, engineering. I understand that we need to have that, but the idea is, you can't have -- something has got to give and the other one -- if you're going to have one, you can't have the other; one gets marginalized and one gets increased. So that seems to have happened in general, and that seems to be reflected with our blind, visually impaired students. We have a lot of stuff to help them integrate into technology, into math, into science, into those classes, but I think as far as integrating them into art, we're like way, way back. I mean, we're back in the '80s maybe, or the '70s even. Chapter 3. Benefits of Arts Instruction Okay. Now you can go on, Nathan. Okay. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Benefits of Arts Instruction Content: Students in general • Links between learning in the arts and student achievement • Links between social and emotional development and arts learning • Transfer: Learning in one area has positive outcomes in another area. Circular development, not linear. Arts Education Makes a Difference in Missouri Schools (2010) Missouri Arts Council. Reinvesting in Arts Education (2011) Presidents Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Description End: Let's talk about why we should do benefits -- why we should have arts instruction anyway. There's studies out there that are looking at finding links between learning in art and generally student achievement in other areas. There's a couple -- I listed a couple of them, studies down there, you can look out which found these things. And there's a handout on the... the screen, there's a handout included that has these in there, as well, if you want to go and look at them. But anyway, they've also found links between the socio-emotional development and arts learning. So to me, those two things are huge, if you're looking at kids. And it's not so much that, you know, you learn in art, and then you go out and do great in math. [ Slide end: ] It's more -- it's a tran -- it's a circular development. Right. So, learning in the arts, helps you in learning in your more so‑called academic classes, which will help you in your art classes, which will help you again. So there's benefits on instruction for kids in general. Now let's talk about benefit of arts instruction for blind‑visually impaired students; which is the next slide. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Benefits of Arts Instruction Content: BVI students in particular • Support and reinforcement of academic skills • Full access to the general education curriculum (TEKS) • Better incorporation into the culture of the classroom • Potential for lifelong leisure or professional activity • Fully rounded person Description End: Okay. So, again, support and reinforcement of academic skills, giving full access to the general ed curriculum. The TEKS. You know, believe it or not, there are TEKS, aren't there, Gretchen? Gretchen: Absolutely. Yes, there are. Scott: Yes, and so our kids should be meeting all those -- should be addressing all of those TEKS. We can't just blow them off and say, "Well, the student is blind, so he can't do that." We have to find a way -- I think -- by law, we're obligated to find a way to make this information accessible to those students. The third thing, you know, the better incorporation into the culture in the classroom, that's what I was talking about with that earlier story with McGruff, the crime fighting dog. It just makes those kids, particularly in early... early edu -- early elementary classrooms are doing so much of that, coloring, and drawing, and the kids are talking about it with each other, and comparing theirs to other people -- there's a lot of information kids get just by picking up -- so, if I've got my picture that I've drawn of my grandpa and he's got blue hair, you know, cause I don't... Gretchen: Right. Scott: Perhaps I don't think about that. The kid next to me will say, "Hey, your grandpa has blue hair." "Yeah, so what?" Well, people don't have blue hair, you know. [ Slide end: ] I might not have known that. And it's a way you can find out that sort of... ancillary information, not by a teacher teaching you, but just from hanging out with your friends and talking. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Benefits of Arts Instruction Content: BVI students in particular • Support and reinforcement of academic skills • Full access to the general education curriculum (TEKS) • Better incorporation into the culture of the classroom • Potential for lifelong leisure or professional activity • Fully rounded person Description End: The next part, the fourth bullet, you know, potential for lifelong leisure and professional activity. Believe it or not, there are professional visual artists who are blind. There are people who make -- this gives them -- I'm not saying you're going to have this huge influx of kids -- of blind art -- blind visual artists, but there's the option. You know, kids should have options, and this is an option that they should have. And then again, it's just a leisure activity. And it makes you a more fully rounded person. I'm a big believer in, you know, that we need it all. We do need technology and technocratic... things in our life, but we need art and appreciation of the art, to be more rounded as society and as people. Gretchen: Absolutely. Scott: So let's... let's -- let's move on. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Expanded Curriculum Content: • compensatory or functional academic skills, including communication modes • orientation and mobility • social interaction skills • independent living skills • recreation and leisure skills • career education • use of assistive technology • sensory efficiency skills • self-determination Description End: The expanded core curriculum. So I was just looking at this. I mean -- I can't think of a single area on here that art wouldn't apply to. I mean, what do you guys think? You know? Yeah. Every single one of those, art supports. Scott: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even if you're in orientation mobility, you know, you've got -- looking at spatial concepts, you've got map reading; social interaction skills, you know, talking about art; comparing your work with other people; rec and leisure skills, of course; career ed, yes, you have -- if you're aware of those things,you can use them; assistive technology, using your technology to access different art things; sensory efficiency skills, of course; self‑determination, just having general knowledge of... what is out there and what's available to you. All right. Well, let's --- we won't spent much more time on that. Let's go ahead. [ Slide end: ] Chapter 4. Visual Arts in the Classroom [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Visual Arts in the Classroom Content: “art” vs. “ART!!!” Description End: So, visual arts in the classroom. This is art versus ART, with a small A, versus ART with a big A. And... that distinction, to me, is talking about -- small art are those early experiences in the classroom> [ Slide end: ] So, if you think about what kids do in pre‑K, kindergarten, first grade, second grade; I mean, what are they doing? What are their assignments in there? Gretchen: Usually like coloring and gluing... Chrissy: It's crafts. A lot of crafts. Gretchen: Yes, exactly. Yeah. It's all coloring, cutting, gluing, pasting. Gretchen: Getting to know the materials... Scott: Drawing. It's a lot of that type of stuff. And... and so, again, if that's not available for a kid who's blind or visually impaired, they're being... frozen out of all that. When I was a T-V-I, I liked to work with all my kids. I liked to work with -- even when I was teaching braille or teaching math, I tried to use what they used in the classroom. Right? So I didn't necessarily go in -- it's great to do things -- like the -- you know, if you want to bring your [Indiscernible] or your... Chrissy: Raised-line drawing kit... Scott: Yeah, and all those things -- and work with kids in isolation. That's great. But... I found kids did a lot better -- more integrated in the class, if you use what they were actually -- like this worksheet. You know, this is real typical, what you see, like in first grade. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 8 A copy of an elementary level worksheet. The sheet is titled "My Family and Me". It has a number of sentenes with blanks where students can fill in information about their family. At the bottom of the sheet is a large, framed square where students titles, “This is a Picture of My Family”. Description End: My family and me. Right. You're supposed to go in fill in the blanks with descriptions of your family, and then you go down and draw a picture. So usually, people would say, "Well, just don't put in the picture. Just tell them to write in the names." Ok. You know, but look, everyone else is going to be drawing. Everyone else is going to be coloring. Everybody else is going to be doing that type of thing. So, that's very important for kids. And let's keep in mind that, you know, learning how to draw with your braille machine, or learning how to draw with... materials for making collage, you know, all that affects your fine motor, all that will affect your braille skills, all that will build those reading readiness skills for when you start implementing that more in the classroom. I mean, this is true for sighted kids and visual skills. They don't just have you drawing and coloring, because they don't have anything better to do. I mean, those are foundational skills for kids. All right. Now, art with a capital A... [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 9 Student art: A large board with dozens of multi-colored and textured ceramic tiles attached to the surface. Description End: that would be integrating into the art classes. Do you -- Nathan, were you able to get any websites of artists? Nathan: No. I thought you said you were going to do that. Scott: Oh. No, I'm not. Nathan: You were going to give me the links and I was going to bring them up. Scott: Okay. Well, we'll talk about that after the show. [ Laughter ]. Chrissy: Uh-oh. [ Laughter ] [ Slide end: ] Scott: Okay. Well, what I have -- so when you get into high school, you can take arts as electives. And I was fortunate enough to have some braille students that did that as a great experience, and it was really a lot of fun trying to find ways that these kids could address some of the concepts that you learn in arts classes, but learn to do it tactilely. And, you know, there's things like -- what's that called? Two‑point... perspective? Gretchen: Yes. Scott: Things like that, that you think about, well, that's completely irrelevant, but no, no, no. I found that kids could learn that concept -- they'd understand, like, okay, objects in the foreground are closer than objects in the background. You know, they begin to understand. They begin... Drawing them larger, then smaller... Things that are larger, are typical. So you start to... and they start to create works of art like that. But, anyway, what I had originally hoped to do was have some websites here of visually impaired artists who are professionals. Chrissy: Now, Hillary has written in -- or has offered up an interesting website, Art Beyond Sight dot org. Yes. Thank you, Hillary. And I was going to talk -- I was going to talk about that later on, Hillary. But yeah, that's a real good one to look at. I'll talk about it a little bit here -- a little bit further down. Let's look at -- this... this particular work we're looking at is not professional artist, this is a T-S-B-V-I artist; right Gretchen? [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 9 Student art: A large board with dozens of multi-colored and textured ceramic tiles attached to the surface. Description End: Gretchen: Yes. Scott: That's a really nice ceramic piece that was done. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 10 Student art: Self-portrait of a young man with black hair, wearing a red shirt. Only his upper body is visible. Description End: And let's look at the next one. This is another T-S-B-V-I artist. Gretchen: Yes. Scott: That is a self‑portrait, which -- how did y'all do that? We ‑‑ Low vision student. Exactly. Exactly. He's progressive visual loss. [ Slide end: ] He could see until he was -- let's see, 2013, I believe. And so he progressively lost his vision. And we used the overhead projector. So, we just printed a... photograph of him onto a transparency sheet, and then put that -- [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 10 Student art: Self-portrait of a young man with black hair, wearing a red shirt. Only his upper body is visible. Description End: and blew it up on the overhead projector. And so, the light from the projector, and the size of the photo really helped him to do this picture, and so he basically looked -- got up close to the wall and kind of traced it on a piece of paper, which was difficult for him. But he could see the light and shadow. And... so he's very proud of this, because he didn't think that he could do this sort of thing. Scott: That's really nice. Gretchen: Exactly. Scott: It's a very nice piece. And it looks just like him! Scott: Uh‑huh. And the next... the one, Nathan? [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 11 Student Art: Brightly, colored drawing showing four figures standing on a horizontal line. The figures are composed of geometric shapes and appear to represent people an buildings. Description End: Here's something, this is really, really nice. Gretchen: Absolutely. And -- yeah. This student just drew this straight up. It was pictures of buildings and a city, and this is the way he saw... [ Slide end: ] the city, and so I think it's just a wonderful perspective to see what these students are seeing, and then how they translate it to art. Scott: Yeah. Yeah. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 11 Student Art: Brightly, colored drawing showing four figures standing on a horizontal line. The figures are composed of geometric shapes and appear to represent people an buildings. Description End: We've all got our own vision. Yes. Exactly. Scott: Whether we're sighted or visually impaired. What's the next one, Nathan? [ Slide end: ] Chapter 5. Art Appreciation [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Art Appreciation Content: • Art Literacy - Knowing the vocabulary and learning how to read a work • Programs o Meadows Museum o San Antonio Museum of Art Description End: Ooh. So we're already talking about art appreciation. So, in addition to art production, producing art, there's a whole field of art -- you know, art appreciation, looking at art and understanding art. Gretchen: Uh‑huh. Scott: You know, the vocabulary of art. Gretchen: Right. Scott: And that's looking at producing -- it's basically looking at perhaps producing tactile images of works of art. And there's been a whole -- there's been a lot of discussion around that in the past, again, saying that well, some of this stuff is just not appropriate. Some of this stuff is not going to give the information that students -- [ Slide end: ] that will make sense to a blind or a student with serious visual impairment. But you look -- I know the Meadows Museum up in Dallas, they've done real extensive work. They have a -- if you guys aren't familiar with the Meadows, it has a very large collection of Spanish art, and they've done a really, really good job of taking those works of art and defining what is the salient piece of those and how to present them in a way that... that students can -- or blind and visually impaired people can understand what the artist's intent was, and how they did it. It's really an enriching experience. If any of you guys get the chance to go by and check that out, I highly recommend it. San Antonio Museum of Art has started doing something down there every month, they do a different show. I haven't made -- I'm going to go down next month. Gretchen: Oh, cool. Yeah. Scott: Yeah. They're going to have a show there around Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos. I'm looking forward to that... Gretchen: That should be great. Scott: ...seeing what that's all about. Chrissy: And Hillary says that the art museum in Dallas is on the S-M-U campus. Scott: Thank you, Hillary. Chrissy: For those of you in that area. Scott: Yeah, I went up there and saw -- Hillary and I -- I went there up and visited with her -- Hillary, what was the lady's -- what's... Carmen; right? Do you know -- what's her full name? Chrissy: The lady that what? Scott: That works with the program to transcribe... to transcribe the works into tactile format. I can't remember -- her name slips my mind. I didn't write it down here. Chrissy: Hillary says maybe. I don't know. Scott: Maybe? [ Laughter ] Chrissy: Maybe what, Hillary? [ Laughter ] Scott: Maybe she remembers. This will be a good time to remember. [ Laughter ]. Gretchen: Maybe that's her last name. Scott: I don't think so... Anyway, those are some really nice programs that are working with making art accessible for blind or visually impaired people. Chapter 6. Creating Art [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Creating Art Content: • Curriculum: How to do it and when to do it • Materials: What to use and where to get it Commercially available (American Printing House for the Blind) Make your own Description End: So in looking at creating art, you know, we need to look at the curriculum; how to do it, when to do it. Then it comes down to like, you know, what kind of materials are you going to use, where are you going to get these, how are you going to teach those visual art... concepts to a blind or visually impaired person. So, of course, that's -- not all of us have an arts background. So this again, this is like any other subject that you teach as a T-V-I in the field; you have to collaborate with that classroom teacher, to see like what the TEKS are, what are the concepts that they're going to be working on, and work together to find a solution for it. That's how it's done in art as well as every other area. So there are materials available out there. There are some commercially available materials out there. Not a lot. There's some through A-P-H and there's some, you know, if you go in and glean them, like, you know, do a web search, you can find different things, but there's not a lot at all. You typically need to do, what you do with many other things... make your own. [ Slide end: ] Gretchen: Absolutely. And there's no reason why you need something special to teach art to blind and visually impaired kids. Scott: Uh‑huh. Gretchen: We just use -- today my group of kids just went out and gathered the leaves, you know, the fall -- it was like, "Yea, fall!" So, we go out there and gathered up leaves and different sorts of things that felt interesting. And so, tomorrow we're going to glue them down and talk about it. It's going to be sort of a... a way to remember the experience. We just went out and swung on the swings and all that stuff... Scott: Yeah Gretchen: But just, you know, like any other kids, you just make it part of their lives, show them it's out there everywhere... the tactile stuff, you know. Scott: Sure. Yeah. So, I'm going to talk a little bit more about -- a little bit more about materials later on. But let's look at a little bit more art here. Take a little break. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 12 Student Art: braille drawing on paper showing figures of a cat and a person. The Figures are formed of strait lines and rectangles. There are blue and yellow crayon marks on the surface of the paper. Description End: Scott: Carmen Smith. Scott: Carmen Smith works at the Meadows Museum at the S-M-U campus in Dallas. And she's done a great job working -- I think it's... Braille Associates who does the... transcribing -- I guess you'd call it transcribing art into tactile format. It's really nice, if you get a chance to see it. This thing you're looking at now, this is a piece that a student did for me. So, this is a braille -- this is a braille drawing. I used to love to do drawing with the Perkins brailler. Gretchen: Yeah. It's wonderful. Scott: I'll describe -- you can't see it really well, but the top -- there's two images. On the top is a cat, and on the bottom is a person. And it's interesting, because... the cat -- the person -- what's interesting about this to me is the person on the bottom, the hands -- the arms and the hands are about the same size as the body. So I thought that was an interesting... you know, if that was maybe -- had something to do with the way this child perceived the world. You know, the hands were very, very important to her. And then of course, she went ahead and colored it. And I -- I've -- most of my kids... whether they were blind or they had some vision, loved to color. Once you get the into it, they loved to color. They'd always say, "Is this blue? Is this red? I want to make this brown." Gretchen: Uh-huh. Scott: They loved doing it. I mean, kids loved to color, and kids -- blind and visually impaired kids aren't any different. Let's look at another piece of art. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 13 Student Art: Painting. Background is red at the top and green at the bottom. Brightly colored dots, red and orange, cover the surface and there are several grey squiggly lines in a vertical configuration. Description End: This is painting. This is done by a T-S-B student. Very nice. Let's go to the next one. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 14 Student Art: A collage of numerous object glued to a piece of cardboard. There are shells, stars, pieces of papers, beads and straws. Everything is covered with purple paint and purple glitter. Description End: Ooh, this is a collage. Gretchen: Oh, that looks great. Scott: Yeah, doesn't that look pretty? Gretchen: Yes. Scott: Yeah. This was done... this was done at T-S-B art class. Collage is great. And you can do -- you can use collage -- this is sort of an abstract, but you can use collage if you want to do composition. You know, if you -- looking back to that... that braille drawing of the cat and the person, you know, those weren't necessarily -- they didn't look like a person or a cat as we would think of it. [ Slide end: ] You know, they were basically boxes. You know, basically like squares, and it represents -- you know, that square represents a cat. This square represents the head or this square, you know -- it's not in the shape that we would think -- like an outline, a silhouette is what we would typically think of. What people used to do -- a lot of raised‑line drawings. Well, I'll make a raised-line drawing of, you know, the Washington monument, or a raised line drawing of... of the H-M-S Bounty. And it doesn't make any sense, because it's just a lot of raised lines. But if look at, you know, this... this... this... shape represents this, or this shape over here represents that. So you can do collage to teach composition in art class. This is an abstract and beautiful. Next one? Gretchen: And it was done by a completely blind student. Scott: Yeah. Uh-huh. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 15 Student Art: Colored pencil drawing showing the Hemisphere Tower in San Antonio surrounded by several other buildings. There is a dirigible and also a flying saucer in the sky around the tower. Description End: Here - this is cool. This is a drawing a student did, long time ago. Some of you might -- some of you people out there Gretchen: Is that Albert? Scott: Yep. This is Albert. A student named Albert, who was here years and years ago. Beautiful drawing... colored -- pencil -- pen and colored pencil, I think. Chrissy: Hillary says that A-P-H does fancy tactile pieces with collaboration with the visual aide volunteers. [ Slide end: ] Scott: Okay. Chrissy: She thinks. And then she also gave a website for Meadows Museum Dallas dot org. Gretchen: Excellent. Scott: Thank you, Hillary. This is a... this is a ceramic piece... [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 16 Student Art: Ceramic wall hanging. A yellow colored board has numerous ceramic tiles of many colors attached to the surface. Other tiles hand from stings and beads at the bottom. The work is handing by another string that is covered with beads. Description End: T-S-B-V-I student, and moving right along. [ Slide end: ] Chapter 7. Resources [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Some Resources Content: • Art Beyond Sight (AFB) • Art Listserve (NFB) • Draftsman Tactile Drawing Board (APH) • The Perkins Brailler! (Perkins) Description End: Okay. So here's some... some resources. So, yeah, Art Beyond Sight. Art Beyond Sight. Go to the next slide. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 17 Photo of the front cover of a book titled "Art Beyond Sight". The book is dark blue and has a stylized picture of an eye featured prominently. Description End: Can you -- okay. This is a book -- this is an organization called Art Beyond Sight and they've put out this big, thick book that A-F-B publishes, and it's got research, it's got things about art appreciation, it's got things about art production, it's -- you know, it's a little pricy, of course, but it's got a lot of really nice stuff in it, generally, about using art with students who are blind or visually impaired. And... they have their own website, and also, there's a listserv, there's a mailing list -- I guess it's a listserv, a discussion thread, through... through N-F-B, which addresses art and visual impairment. And there's three of them. [ Slide end: ] There's three different listservs, one's for educators, one's for... I think, tools, and the other one is... research. But, really, they're all three the same, from what I've seen. But there's a resource list that you can download here, and it's got a link to that, if you'd like to go on there and see it. It's got some really neat stuff that I didn't know about. I just found out a show they're doing here -- in Brownsville, that's an accessible show, and I didn't know anything about that till the other day when it came up on that listserv. So on the next one -- okay. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 18 Photograph of the Draftsman Tactile Drawing Board. The board has a green frame surrounding a tan center. A piece of translucent paper is over the center and several raised line shapes have been marked into it. Description End: This is the -- what's this called? This is called the Draftsman Tactile Drawing Board. So if any of you guys have a blind student or extremely low visual student, they might like this for incorporating a student into a classroom. So -- all of you may be really familiar with it, but basically you have sheets of acetate that fit on top of this, and then you use a stylist to mark lines and they raise. It's not a reverse image, it's an actual image. It's really nice to teach concepts, or to get a student to be able to start creating things. It's called -- and that's an A-F-B product. You can get that for Quota Funds. A-P-H. A-P-H? Scott: A-P-H. What did I say? [ Slide end: ] A-F-B. Scott: Oh. Thanks, Chrissy. Gretchen: That's why she's here. Chrissy: That's why I'm here. [ Laughter ] Scott: Okay. Now... So let's -- there's -- back up, back up Nathan. Okay. There's some other stuff out there, there's one called a... tact... tact aid, I think. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 18 Photograph of the Draftsman Tactile Drawing Board. The board has a green frame surrounding a tan center. A piece of translucent paper is over the center and several raised line shapes have been marked into it. Description End: It's a drawing board that's like this, but you can actually attach it to a computer and download pictures. So I'm real -- I haven't tried that yet, but I'm real excited because that would be a way that perhaps you could save things and manipulate them, you know, like make a drawing and then save it and go in back later on and manipulate it. And that's what -- and that's what artists nowadays -- you know, sighted artists are all using digital media, or a lot of them are, so that's another way maybe that will open up for our kids to get in there and use that. Okay Nathan, now you can move on. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 19 Photo of a Perkins Brailler taken from above. Description End: And you guys rep -- you guys might recognize this... art device. Chrissy: Ray Charles. [ Laughter ]. Scott: Okay. Okay. That is the Perkins Brailler. I've already talked a lot about using the Perkins Brailler for drawing. Before I taught -- when I had young, young kids, the first thing we did was draw lines, and then we drew like shapes. And if you go to the next slide, [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 20 Photograph of a book titled "Drawing with Your Perkins Brailler". Prominently features the image of a girl laying prone on her bed with a Perkins brailler in front of her. The fingers of her left hand are on the keys and her right hand is touching an image on a piece of paper that is in the machine. She is smiling. Description End: there is -- this book is available. This comes through -- who does this come through? This comes through... I forget ‑‑ Chrissy: Perkins. There's their logo at the bottom. Scott: It is? Okay. So Perkins puts out this book called Drawing with Your Perkins Brailler. Mostly it's color by numbers, connect the dots, you know, where it says space over three times and put a W-H sign, space over two times, and put an S. Down one line, it kind of goes -- [ Slide end: ] and you draw like a Christmas tree or a choo‑choo train or a... bear or something like that. Which, you know, can be okay... but it's not creative in the sense that I'm thinking of, but what it does do -- the very first two or three pages have directions for how to draw a square, how to draw a rectangle, how to draw a triangle. So for me, with young kids, when I started teaching them symbolism, you know, like this is -- this square is a symbol for a bear, this symbol is a -- this triangle is a symbol for Goldilocks, now you've drawn a picture of the three bears and Goldilocks, you know. And then you label it. So that's a way they can take part. Then you can color the square, you can color the triangle, you can do that whole thing. So it's a cool book. And some kids like doing that. Some kids like being able to draw, you know, a sports car or a, you know, Raggedy Ann or whatever -- there's a lot of stuff in there. Okay. Let's go on and look at the next one. All right, so here's just some... current events, some things that are just going on right now around the State of Texas. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Current Events Content: • Meadows Museum • San Antonio Museum of Art • Historic Brownsville Museum • Unseen Art • Comics Empower • Student Art Exhibits (TSBVI and Texas Focus) Description End: You know, there's the Meadows Museum, which we mentioned. And they've got -- you know, they do the gallery -- it's on a regular -- it's on a regular -- if you give them two weeks' notice, they'll schedule -- they'll schedule in a tour to do the tactile pictures, like you can go in there and, like, see them, but you've got to call them two weeks ahead of time. One thing they're going to do... like later on in the spring, in April, they're going to do this class called Art Beyond Sight for teachers. It's designed for teachers of students who are blind or low vision. And it'll show you tools and multi-sensory approaches that enable students to explore works -- the Meadows Museum. So the Meadows Museum specifically -- but I think some of those skills and strategies would apply, generalized to other things. So if you want to sign up for that, go to the Meadows Museum website and that's on the list of resources that's included. I mentioned the San Antonio Museum of Art. That they're also doing... accessible shows. And I mentioned somebody down in Brownsville, at the Historic Brownsville Museum, is doing a thing that's all tactile works -- works that are primarily tactile or sound. So I think that's really neat -- there's really a lot of that stuff going on. I mean, this is just Texas. This is just Texas. But I mean all around the country, people are doing a lot of this stuff. And then there's -- oh and this Unseen Art, this was a really interesting development that I heard about a couple of weeks ago. And I talked to the guy that is implementing this. And this is a private enterprise, and what they're doing is... they want to make works of art available on -- what do they call it MP3? -- on digital files that you can download and have printed on a 3-D printer. [ Slide end: ] So they want to make that available, free, so if you joined, they would send you like the Mona Lisa, in a digital file. Then if you had access to a 3-D printer, you could print it out and look at it. They were supposed to send me that one. I was going to print it up and have it here to look, but they did not send it yet. But... it's an concept -- an interesting idea. Gretchen: Yeah. Scott: I don't know how... how well it would work or who they have doing it, but I think it's a real interesting idea. They they were trying to raise money or they were trying to raise interest, and so there's a... a survey you can take if you go to their website, Unseen Art. And, again, that's on the resource list. And... you can take that survey. Another thing I found -- Comics and Power. That's a group that does accessible comic books for the blind. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Current Events Content: • Meadows Museum • San Antonio Museum of Art • Historic Brownsville Museum • Unseen Art • Comics Empower • Student Art Exhibits (TSBVI and Texas Focus) Description End: And they have -- they're auditory books, and the guy -- the founder of this, he thought that, you know, people were empowered by having super heroes. Like he remembered -- he'd give the example of... you know, a kid -- an African American child that, you know, had little self‑esteem or was feeling bad, and then there was a character in a comic book that was African American, and he felt empowered. Or the little girl, who by reading Wonder Woman, felt that she was -- that she could do super things in her life. So this guy looked at that and said, "What if I do comic books that were for persons who are blind." So he came up with these comic books that feature heroes and heroines, who are blind and visually impaired, but also they're auditory books, so you can listen to them. And... they're like three buck to join -- well no, they're like three bucks a comic. Anywhay, they're currently having a contest for people to write comics. So if you have a student who likes to write, or likes comics, they might want to do this. Gretchen: Cool. Scott: Isn't that wild? [ Slide end: ] Chrissy: Aaron... Aaron in region 1 asked if you have any ideas when the dates are for that Brownsville museum show. Scott: I think it's right now. I think it started like on -- last Friday. But if you -- if you Google that Historic Brownsville Museum, or again in... in... the resources list, I included that in there. Yeah, but that's -- yeah, I would definitely go down and check it out. I didn't know anything about it. I 'd even heard about it. It seems really cool. And finally, I know, Gretchen, you're going to do... you're going to do an art exhibit of T-S-B-V-I students for parent weekend just pretty soon. Right? Uh‑huh. November the 14th, I think. Scott: Yeah. So that should real neat. We should get art work to look at. And then the other thing is -- for those of you who didn't know -- we're having Texas Focus, is coming again this year, after like a four‑year hiatus. But we'll be having Texas Focus -- I think in Dallas -- it's in Dallas this year. Right? Arlington, maybe? Scott: Well. Yeah. Okay. Arlington. It's in the Dallas area this year, and we were hoping to include -- have a student art show at Texas Focus. So you guys out there in the world, if you can start collecting art work for some of your kids, we'll find a way to get that there and make it part of the show. I think that would be really, really neat to have kids from all over Texas show their work. Gretchen: Yes. Scott: Yeah. So... Gretchen: Talk about empowering. Scott: Uh‑huh. Yeah. I think it would be really neat. That's not until June so you've got plenty of time. Here's another -- [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 21 Student Art: A sculpture consisting of a number of plastic tags of different colors that have been arranged to form a spiraling shape. Beads are attached to the surfaces of the tags. Description End: I guess what we're looking at is a mobile, hanging mobile. It's from T-S-B-V-I. Next? [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 22 Student Art: Paper cut outs of fish that have been colored with markers. One fish is orange with green fins and the other is covered with multi-colored shapes. The background is blue and has wavy lines to resemble water. Description End: Oh, this was a guy -- these are fish. These are cut‑outs. He drew these and cut these out. This was a student I had here --- it was a T-S-B-V-I student. It was years and years -- it was over 20 years ago, this student used to do these. Aren't those neat? He had very low vision. His nose -- he used to draw these -- the tip of his nose was black because his marker would rub off on it. [ Laughter ] Chrissy: Can I ask a question? Scott: Yes. [ Slide end: ] Chrissy: When you're an itinerant teacher and you're working with classroom teachers who are incorporating art into their lessons, what is your general advice to the itinerant teacher who's collaborating in those situations? To maybe do a little -- to get some resources and do a little bit of research ahead of time, or to be bold and jump in and come up with your own imaginative idea of how your student with a visual impairment can... participate, or what's your general -- for the day‑to‑dayness, not an art class, because I think that's a different set of skills for the itinerant teacher, but for the day‑to‑day art that you talked about, the small art ‑‑ Scott: Uh‑huh. Yep. -- what's your advice to itinerant teachers to collaborate? Scott: Well ‑‑ Chrissy: Am I throwing you off here? Scott: No, no. I mean I think that's a huge topic, and I think we could do a whole webinar on that. And I would like to do a whole webinar on that, in the future, if there's interest for that. And I think you have to start very early with your students, in, you know, pre‑K level, of showing them, talking to them about symbolism and representation, and how to create art using your Perkins Brailler, or using collage materials or using tape. So that by the time -- I mean, I was always -- when I was a T-V-I, I always tried to look a year ahead, thinking what are kids going to be doing? When I was in kindergarten, I wanted to know what they'd be doing in first grade so they could learn those skills beforehand. So... so -- but you know what kids are going to be doing in the early grade levels, they're going to be coloring, they're going to be drawing. And there are ways -- there are ways to do that -- that the student can do that, independently, but you have to sort of pre-plan it. You have to kind of front‑end load it. Okay. And there's -- so, a couple people have written in. "I do my best to integrate what we're all doing," and then he has a student that has a Visio book to enlarge his work., and then another one that zooms in on an iPad. Scott: Uh-huh. Chrissy: So... So, in other words, Aaron, you're using those two pieces of equipment to enlarge so that your student can participate... in art? Yes. Scott: Uh‑huh. Yeah. That's a whole 'nother -- that's a whole 'nother topic to look at. Let's go on to the next slide. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Poll Content: • Was this webinar helpful for you? Yes or No • Would you be interested in exploring this topic further in future presentations? Yes or No Description End: So, yeah, I wanted to -- I want to do a couple of polls here, just to kind of look at this, because -- I'm glad you brought that up, Aaron. That could be a whole 'nother aspect to talk about around the field of art, you know, how do you use your technology to access or how do you -- be included in art class. Gretchen: Uh-hmm. Scott: There's a whole lot of... creative ways of using it. So here's a poll. I'd like to know, guys, was this webinar at all helpful to you, and would you be interested in exploring this topic in the future. Nathan, you can go ahead and put up another slide while they're filling out that poll. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 23 Student Art: Self-portrait of a girl and a dog. Only the head of the dog is visible. The girl's head and one shoulder are visible. The girl has blond hair, is wearing a black shirt and also has on glasses. The dog's head is white with a black nose and black mouth. There is a yellow stripe on the dog's head. Description End: So, this is another one of those self‑portraits... Gretchen: Yes. Scott: That Gretchen's students did with the -- using the overhead project. It's beautiful. Really nice. Chrissy: Is the poll active? Scott: The poll should be active. Chrissy: It says the poll is closed. Scott: Poll is closed? Okay. Now the poll is active. Chrissy: Okay. Gretchen: There we go. Nathan: We have eight yes's, so far. Scott: Yes. Chrissy: Okay. We can't see that here. Scott: Yes for everything? Yes, it was helpful or ‑‑ yes... Nathan: 100 percent, "Yes, it was helpful." Scott: Well. Gretchen: There you go, Scott. Scott: I don't know why I'm surprised. Chrissy: You question yourself. Gretchen: Exactly. Scott: Well, I wanted this just to be a general information session and get down to more of the nitty‑gritty, because I think there is some really good -- there's some really -- there's some really practical information that I think people want to know out there. So the next poll goes into looking at a little more detail, like specific topics, would you be interested in looking at any of these specific topics. Here's another slide. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 24 Student Art: A short length of rope that has been wrapped in different colors of yarn. The rope is stiff and sands up in several loops and bends. Description End: Oh, this is a yarn‑wrapped piece of rope that Gretchen's kids are doing. You're going to put that all together to make a huge sculpture? Gretchen: Exactly. It's a collaborate work. So, all my students, no matter what age, are able to do this sort of thing, and it -- so, they're all wrapping different sorts of items. You know, we've got rope and we have tubes that they're wrapping. They make great sounds, too. You know, we have an old coffee maker that they're wrapping. You know, we have just a variety of things that students are sort of decorating with this yarn, and we're going to put it all together and make one huge weaving out of it. Chrissy: Ok. So what I'm getting -- Hillary says she can't see the picture for the poll, and Karen is saying the second question is not showing on the poll. Umm... Scott: Oh, the second question was -- the topic was meaningful art projects for students who are -- with severe and profound impairments. Chrissy: Well, that one's showing, but there is one that says, "Resources, commercially available products, organization and books." Scott: That one is not showing? Chrissy: Apparently not. Scott: Okay. Nathan: [Indiscernible] Chrissy: But your largest reply is to, methods and materials for integrating students into art lessons, and then, theater and dance. And then... and then after that would be, meaningful art activities for students with multiple impairments and visual impairments. Scott: Uh‑huh. Okay. Can we see the next slide, Nathan? [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 25 Student Art: An abstract painting with green and pink circular swirling shapes on a red background. Description End: Yeah, there's a painting. It's a real nice painting. I think one more? [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Poll Content: • What possible future subjects would be of interest to you? • Methods and materials for integrating students into art lessons • Resources: commercially available products, organizations, books • Meaningful art activities for students with multiple impairments and visual impairments • Accommodations in art for students with low vision • Creating art with the Perkins Brailler • Theater/Dance • Art Appreciation – Making art accessible (Meadows, SAMA) • Blind artists Description End: Yeah, that's the poll. Go on past the poll. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 26 Student Art: Painting of a green dinosaur. There are a red and a pink stripe at the bottom of the painting. Only the upper part of the dinosaur is visible. The background is blue and covered with yellow stars. Description End: Oh, that's beautiful. That's really nice. Gretchen: That's great. Scott: Dinosaur. Yeah. So... if you guys -- I mean, it sounds like people out there in the world are interested in pursuing this a little further. So, I'm going to try to... maybe mount a couple of more arts‑based webinars this year, to talk about some of these issues more specifically, and hopefully maybe even, if some of you guys out there have some experience or some ideas, [ Slide end: ] you could send them in and co‑present, or at least take part in the webinar. Because there are things I know, that I use, but I'm sure a lot of you guys have different things. This slide you're looking at -- or you're not looking at -- [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 27 Student Art: Sheet of white paper covered with streaks and botches of colored paint. Most prominent are purple, yellow, red and blue. Small dots of color are also visible all over the surface. Description End: now you're looking at it, this is a huge -- this is like three feet by six feet. Gretchen: Right. Scott: I think. And it was done -- painting with bubble wrap. Gretchen: Exactly. So we just laid it out on the ground and made little shoes out of bubble wrap, which basically just meant wrapping the bubble wrap around their feet. Scott: Looks like a Jackson Pollock. Exactly! And the kids got on the paper, danced around, socialized, it was a really great experience. Scott: Yeah, so something like that, I think, about for the kids who are M-I-V-I. Oh, anyway -- so we're almost out of time. I know we started a little bit late. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 27 Student Art: Sheet of white paper covered with streaks and botches of colored paint. Most prominent are purple, yellow, red and blue. Small dots of color are also visible all over the surface. Description End: Chrissy: Let me just say this. One person would like to be able to include regular ed art teachers, and Aaron says I am a regular ed. [ Laughter ] [Multiple Voices] [ Slide end: ] Scott: Aaron, you might be -- I heard from a TVI down in region 1 about an art teacher, and I sent him the link to this, and you're probably -- are you that Aaron -- that was talking to your T-V-I about? Chrissy: Yes. Scott: We should -- you and I should talk some more, Aaron, because one -- another aspect of this, is that, you know, T-S-B-V-I Outreach does support teachers around the state with different programs, and we can do that with art. You know, we could come -- we could send an Outreach people down there to work with you guys on how to integrate a blind or visually impaired student into an art class. We'd love -- I'd love to do so -- that would be fun. Gretchen: It would be. Scott: That would be a blast. So we can talk about that some more later on, Aaron, if you're interested. But... go on to the next -- [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Content: Figure 28 Student Art: Pen and crayon drawing showing a small back figure walking on a brown bridge. In the water under the bridge, branches of small trees are sticking out. There are green mountains in the background. Black birds are flying in the blue sky. Description End: oh, that's another old, old one, old slide from years ago. [ Slide end: ] [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Contact Info Content: • If you would like to be included in group emails on the topic of arts instruction, send your information to: • baltisbergers@tsbvi.edu • Do you have information to share? • Theory to Practice School Consultation? Description End: Contact info. You guys -- if you would like to be included -- I'd like to maybe start our own statewide mailing list about art... and share resources, share events, so if you would e‑mail me your name and your e‑mail address -- that's my e‑mail address, baltisberger-s at t-s-b-v-i dot e-d-u, I will include you on that list. If you have information to share, I'd love to get it from you guys. I'd love, love, love, to hear about your experiences teaching art and any ideas you might have. And then last of all, I was talking the theory-to-practice consultation with Aaron. [ Slide end: ] We do that. You need to go in and fill out a request. It's easy to do. But we love to do that. I love to go out and work with kids. I love to work with... with teachers in the schools. Chrissy: Can they -- could individual teachers post their students' art work on our Facebook page? Scott: I think that's a great idea. I think that would be a great idea. You know, we could even maybe have an art -- because we've got all these pages, there's the web -- the Facebook page has pages, you know, specifically for multiple impairments or for braille or for O&M, and maybe we could have an art page, where people could go for resources, or look at people's art. I think, you know, it's huge; there's like all this stuff we could do around art if we had people interested in doing it, and it sounds like there is. So I think -- I'm thinking we need to pursue this further. Gretchen: I think so, too. Chrissy: Yes. Scott: Okay. Well, great. So, I don't want to keep you guys any longer. You've already been here for three minutes more than you're supposed to be. [ Slide start: ] Description Start: Title: Thanks for joining us! Content: Art and the ECC October 19, 2015 TSBVI Outreach Programs Description End: Again, sorry for the problems at the beginning, but thanks a lot for joining us, and we will see you guys, hopefully, next time we have a meeting. And if you send me your name for the mailing list, I'll make sure you get a direct invitation to come. [ Slide end: ] [Silence]