Visually impaired children gets a chance to be creative!

In a Village Gate classroom, five youngsters run their hands through a colorful jumble of foam hearts, shells and marbles. Their fingers eagerly sift through shapes and textures that their eyes can barely make out.

"Try any of them!" urges Shannon Halligan, an art therapist at Village Gate's Sage Arts Center. "Each feels a little bit different. You're going to design a tile using these pieces."

Josh Watson, a Gates pupil wearing a Spider Spider-Man T-shirt, daubs a few shells with Elmer's Glue-All. Peering intently through thick wire-rimmed glasses, he arranges the shells in bold geometric shapes on a tile.

Nearby, four other blind or visually impaired children experiment with paint and spools of tape. Like 13-year-old Josh, they are pioneers in a new program launched by the local Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired- – Goodwill.

ABVI spokesman Timothy Gleason says that the Creative Vision Program "allows a child to understand art beyond the use of sight ... as a guide for self-expression." That may seem an ambitious goal, but the organizers insist it's well within reach.

"Art is always thought of as a visual medium," says program coordinator Sarah Favro, an ABVI children's specialist. "But even if children's vision is limited, they still can create art. And they can get the satisfaction of building something of their own."

She speaks from experience. Nearly blind herself, she can perceive light but not shapes. She believes that the new hands-on course will give youngsters improved motor coordination, concentration and self-confidence.

The materials used are largely tactile. Children make prints by rubbing crayons over textured designs, build puppets and construct plaster masks.The materials and two art therapists hired from Sage Arts are funded through a $5,000 grant from the local Dorothea Haus Ross Foundation. The seven youngsters — all clients of ABVI — are 3 to 17 years old and travel from Monroe, Wayne and Orleans counties.

They can enroll in three free courses, each meeting for six 1½-hour sessions over three months. Topics include art and self-expression, learning about artists and art based on nature.

On a recent morning, they pass around a mask made by Macedon student Brandon Packard. It bears a flashy image of rocker Phil Collins, whose early hits are playing on the classroom CD player.

"Listen to that! It's the first Genesis album in which Collins sang," announces Brandon, 17. "Really great. Before that, he mostly played drums."

His pep rally seems lost on his classmate Teale Bradley. She decorates two large marbles as her mother, Ellie, talks to her in sign language.Embracing an overstuffed Winnie-the-Pooh doll, Teale seems exceptionally high-spirited. But she packs into her 7 years a harrowing history of medical setbacks. She has a hearing loss and is blind on the ?????/maa – change to 'can't see from the right side of both eyes' or right side of both eyes.

"She was born dead, but after seven minutes doctors resuscitated her," says Ellie, a Pittsford resident. "She has cerebral palsy, epilepsy and can use only her left arm."

None of that slows Teale down."I go to gymnastics with Mommy!" she shouts. This first-grader at Thornell Road Elementary School also enjoys bowling, ice skating and horseback riding.

Ellie believes that the arts program works well for Teale — and it has little to do with masks and ceramic tiles."She's had great social interaction and met new people," she says. "The teachers are very patient and understanding. Teale has behavior problems and can get angry and frustrated."

The teachers say that a lively social experience is one of their goals for the whole class."We really encourage the kids to interact," says Halligan. "We pass around objects for everybody to touch and pair kids up to work together."

She and fellow teacher Trish Pellegrino trained at ABVI this fall to prepare for the Creative Vision Program. They used distorted goggles to simulate visual disorders that their students live with.
Though unique in its focus on children, the program has one local forerunner. For seven years, the Memorial Art Gallery ran classes teaching blind and vision-impaired adults how to make and appreciate art.

That program disbanded three years ago, but one component remains. Blind visitors can still touch selected pieces of art with gloves, touring the museum with audio guides. The museum's library also has textured diagrams of art from ancient Greece to European modernism.

"We'd certainly welcome visitors from the ABVI program," says Susan Dodge-Peters Daiss, the gallery's education director.The youngsters hope to make a field trip to the museum this spring. But first, they'll create more masks, murals and mobiles at Village Gate.

"Want to do this again, Josh?" Halligan asks as the boy puts away a glue-smeared brush."Yeah!" he says. "Oh, yeah!"