Tactile Drawings, Ethics, and a Sanctuary: Metaphoric Devices Invented by a Blind Woman

Until the last two decades, indications that blind people would understand and create pictures were sparse. EW, a totally blind adult, who began making raised-line drawings in her thirties, created a portfolio of several hundred sketches in nine years. She selects her own topics and invents her trea...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPerception (London) Vol. 42; no. 6; pp. 658 - 668
Main Author Kennedy, John M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.01.2013
Pion
Subjects
Adult
Biological and medical sciences
Blindness - psychology
Emotions
Ethics
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Judgment
Medical sciences
Metaphor
Neoplasms, Multiple Primary - psychology
Neoplasms, Multiple Primary - surgery
Ophthalmology
Orientation
Perception
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reality Testing
Retinal Neoplasms - psychology
Retinal Neoplasms - surgery
Retinoblastoma - psychology
Retinoblastoma - surgery
Social Environment
Stereognosis
Tactile perception
Touch
Vision disorders
outline
blind
metaphor
tactile pictures
Human
Vision disorder
Cognition
Metaphor
Pictural drawing
Case study
Ethics
Tactile sensitivity
Eye disease
Blindness
Perception
Woman
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Summary:Until the last two decades, indications that blind people would understand and create pictures were sparse. EW, a totally blind adult, who began making raised-line drawings in her thirties, created a portfolio of several hundred sketches in nine years. She selects her own topics and invents her treatments of the subjects. What is of special interest here is that two of her drawings, shown in the present paper, depict places but also use devices to indicate one is a sanctuary and the other concerns a tragic era, using metaphor. Lightness of line in a forest drawing indicates it is out of reality, enchanted, and a sanctuary. A tilted grid in a drawing of a Holocaust memorial shows the events at issue were twisted and crooked. The devices are metaphoric and novel. The drawings deal with an ontological category—values—for which metaphorical devices in raised-line depictions have not previously been considered.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
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ISSN:0301-0066
1468-4233
DOI:10.1068/p7480