Shared Creativity

Shared Creativity

The Braille Monitor_______November

1997

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Tina Blatter

Blind Artist Sees Ways

to Share Her Creativity

by Barbara Tomovick

From the Editor: Tina Blatter is a

member of the Board of Directors of the National Federation of the Blind of

South Dakota. She lives in Sioux Falls, where her work was displayed at the

Civic Fine Arts Center on September 7. The following article about her and her

work first appeared in the May 8, 1997, edition of the Rapid City Journal.

Here it is:

Tina Blatter imagined the north wind

as a blue face with puffed-up cheeks, then transformed the picture in her mind,

strip by strip, into a solid, three-dimensional work of papier-mache art.

At Southwest Middle School in Rapid City,

where Blatter is doing a week-long Artist-in-Schools residency, students were

impressed, not only by the expressive north wind mask, but by the hands that

had made it.

In many ways Blatter's hands are her

eyes. Legally blind since birth, she sees color and light but not detail. She

uses a white cane but can quickly memorize a room and move through it with ease.

The five days at Southwest this week

are enough for Blatter to teach students to make masks of their own, winding

glue-dipped strips of newspaper around balloons to form heads. They'll add facial

features and paint by week's end.

But the art project, valuable in itself,

is only secondary, said Southwest art teacher Doris MacDonald. The primary reason

she brought Blatter, forty-four, into her classes was to broaden students' perception

of what is possible.

"It's just amazing how she can do

it," MacDonald said of Blatter, an award-winning artist who has exhibited

nationally and internationally.

It took a little while for the kids to

get used to calling out "Tina" instead of raising their hands to get

her attention. But on the first day Blatter and the class talked about what

it's like to have a disability and the lessons that can be learned from it.

She told the students, "Everyone

needs help with something. Everyone's different. We all have to be creative

in finding ways to do things."

The message got through to Ross Palmer,

who said, "It's kind of hard to be blind, to get around places. She has

to buy a lot of different stuff--talking stuff (such as a computer) and a special

(Braille) watch."

But blindness is not an obstacle to a

full life, he realized. "It's kind of amazing what people can do art-wise."

Jaimie Didier also expressed admiration

for Blatter, "She has neat ideas. She's just, like, really creative, and

I think it's just really cool how she does this stuff."

Katie Ruedebusch said Blatter is a good

artist and teacher, who encourages students to use their imaginations. "It's

like your own creation, and you can make it whatever you want," she said

of the mask project.

Blatter is delighted to find herself

teaching art, an ambition that long seemed beyond her reach. In college in her

native New York state, she majored in elementary and special education, then

earned a master's degree in rehabilitation counseling, putting away any thought

of studying art.

"I didn't think anyone would take

me seriously," she said.

Nonetheless, a persistent creative urge

kept her busy at the easel, developing her own techniques and becoming increasingly

aware of the need to add texture to her paintings--to make touchable art for

the visually impaired, who are shut off from museum displays.

Experimentation with built-up lines of

gold and silver paint, pebbles, shells, beads, sequins, and Braille writing

led to her "tactile collages," signature pieces designed to please

the eye as well as the hand.

"When I have exhibits, I always

say, `Please touch,'" she said.

Inspired by French painter Henri Matisse,

who she said turned to cut paper as his vision faded, she began using bright

foils in two-dimensional images that gleam like stained glass.

In 1990 she moved to the Denver area

from Baltimore, Maryland, refined her collage techniques, and began teaching

in schools and other institutions.

"I started getting out into the

community and talking about being blind and doing art, about finding hope that

there are other ways of doing things," Blatter said.

Her work took her as far as Brussels,

Belgium. Since moving to Sioux Falls a year and a half ago, she has conducted

workshops through the South Dakota Arts Council.

And although she has much to show young

people about art and life, she gets as much as she gives from working with students,

she said.

"They gave me so many ideas."