What is it like being blind?

My greatest fear has always been to go blind. I could not imagine what it would be like to live in a world without sight. My mind was always filled with the images and pictures of the things that I would see in the world around me. I was very much a visual learner, having the ability to remember verbatim what I had read.
My greatest fear having been fulfilled I have been liberated of that fear. I find that life really is not that much different than it was before losing my sight. I had to learn new skills, like the ability to get around with a white cane, including the ability to cross streets by hearing alone. You do it by listening to the sounds of the engines, you wait for the surge, ever listening for the sound of turning cars – cars sound different when they turn. I can't say how they differ because depending on the street you cross it may be a higher or lower sound, but you learn.
The biggest question that any blind person is asked is "Are you really blind?" Sight is considered such a major component of life that to see someone operate without it is amazing to some. It is normal everyday life for others. I do not resent those that ask questions. I love that people will ask me such things. I wish that more would because I know that many people are curious. Most people think that because you have diminished senses you also have a diminished life. That somehow you cannot fully experience what goes on around you if you cannot perceive it visually. This is not true, and hopefully my painting hints at this.

Why do I paint?

The visual arts for non visual people: What’s the point?
I was angry when I lost my sight. Painting seemed a way of shoving my disability right back in the face of God, or nature, or whatever. Funny how things seem to right themselves though. Through painting I found a calmness that I had not known since before my vision had gone.
I also believe that there are a lot of misconceptions about blind people in society.
I think for many it is unfathomable that a person can get around in society without eyesight.
I also think that for someone like me, that was not born congenitally blind, it is a little easier to get around and avoid the "blindisms". Blindisms are the gestures or movements that blind people make that are different than what sighted people would normally do. Like when you are speaking to a blind person and they turn their head so that they are no longer "looking" at you it is because they are just listening intently to you with one ear. I like many other people not born blind try and avoid these and maintain old habits like looking straight at a person when they are speaking to you. I’m not saying that people born blind are different, I just think that I had a much easier time of it because I have years of memories to help me along. It doesn't really matter in the long run, but most people expect blind people to act like what they see in the movies.
Almost every blind person depicted in Hollywood walks like a zombie and stares out into space no matter what is going on around them. A character in a story could be forty years old, had sight all his life and then goes blind and suddenly starts acting like his brain was the organ failing and not his eyes. Hollywood really aggravates me off on this one. Val Kilmer played a good blind man in ‘At First Sight’ from what I've heard. Unfortunately semi-accurate representations like his are few and far between. Now when someone asks if I can really understand something that is visual I can show them a painting.

How do I paint?

I will give just a short synopsis here, because I want to go into this more fully in the Process section of this web site so that anyone with visual deficiencies might get some more detailed ideas of how they might paint.
I did not begin to paint until after I lost my sight, although I have sketched and doodled all my life thinking nothing of it. I thought of painting for a long time before I ever did it. I thought about what would make a good picture. What colors would be best for the tree in my backyard? What angles? I painted several pictures in my mind, brushstroke by brushstroke before I ever dipped a brush in paint. It was a form of meditation, and probably cowardice. As long as I only painted only in my mind then no one could tell me how bad I was at it.
One day I decided that I no longer cared what people thought of my painting including myself. Whether or not my painting was any good I wanted to give it a try. At first I thought of using grid lines made with string to help me find my way along the canvas, but I quickly found this to be too cumbersome, and it did not tell me enough about what was on the canvas. I next started drawing with Elmer’s glue because it dries in a nice line that you can feel. Elmer’s takes about a day to dry so it made complex drawings a much too protracted affair. White Out in pen form dries fast, but has a tendency to sink into the canvas over time making drawings disappear day by day. The solution for me so far has been Puffy Paint. It is a paint that comes out in a thin line, dries fast, and it is very tactile making it easy to know exactly where you are in a painting.
I draw predominately in loops and circles with each circle representing in my mind some color or shadow or place of light. It takes a bit of practice to draw this way and keep in mind what colors you want where, but it is also an all encompassing and liberating way to paint. When I paint I think of nothing else, concentrating so hard at times that I break out in a sweat, but at the same time it is extremely relaxing. It is ironic that it is both of these things; it reminds me of the physical tiredness but mental alertness I would feel when I was younger and practiced martial arts. I wonder now why I waited so long to begin painting.
Another thing, I paint primarily in oils because they are thick and easy to feel on a brush and they take a long time to dry allowing you to take your time. Also different colors of oil paint feel slightly different. For example in the brand of paint that I use black is very slick while white is thick and almost pasty. This helps when mixing paints because you can get an idea of the shade of color you want by the way it should feel when you are through mixing it.

Do blind people watch movies or TV?

I love movies. It is much easier to figure out what is going on the screen than in real life because the director maintains a focus on what he wants you to notice. I will often watch a movie several times noticing different things each time. Sometimes I like for people to describe
what is going on, but most of the time I like to just hear what is going on. Some movies this doesn't work to well so it is good to have a friend that knows what is important to describe and what is not.
Also T.V. where there is a lot of description like the History or Discovery channel or shows like ‘Cheers’ where there is a lot of dialogue is fun to watch.

How did you go blind?

Gradually. So slowly that at first I didn’t realize what was happening. I would be able to recognize a friend say fifty feet away, then over time forty and then 30 and so on. I didn’t really pay it much attention until I started having trouble crossing the street.
Exactly why I lost my vision is not known, what is known is that it is nerve damage that caused the loss, possibly from a seizure disorder that I have. I had preexisting hearing loss that went along those same lines which led my doctors to believe that the same type of damage had occurred to the visual centers of my brain. The reason that it took me so long to pick up on the vision loss is that it was normal for my vision to be diminished for a time after a seizure, so I become used to fluctuating vision. It took some time for me to realize that even when my vision “cleared” it was imperceptibly less acute than it was before.
Normal vision is 20/20, legally blind is 20/200. When I made my first visit to a specialist my vision was 20/400, or twice legal blindness. My vision quickly deteriorated so that in about six months my vision could no longer be measured and I was functionally blind. A term ophthalmologists use to mean that you can no longer see anything.