Blind Idaho artist lets her fingers do the seeing
GOODING, Idaho – Her hands rub in wide circles over the paper, gauging its texture and locating the edges of the page. She rests her left pinky lightly on one edge, while her right hand brings down a tilted black pastel, carving the arc of a bird’s head and beak.
She slides her left thumb up to where the arc stops, while she continues the black line to sketch the bird’s back. Then the hand with the pastel moves back to her left thumb, starting a new line of the bird’s belly and feet. Finally, she uses the side of the pastel to create a high, arched tail.
It’s a rooster, and it’s just been drawn by a completely blind woman.
JoAn Marley believes in art. The Gooding woman, 77, has long been a drawer, painter and ceramist. So when she went completely blind, just after midnight on her 74th birthday, she was at a loss.
“I was laying there with tears in my eyes. I said, ‘But I’m an artist,’ ” she said. “(The doctor) held my hand and said, ‘I can’t think of anything worse in this world than an artist losing their sight.’ “
For every sense that is lost, the world offers ways to compensate: sign language for the deaf, Braille for the blind, extra textures and flavors for people with no sense of smell. The most important compensation, though, may be in attitude.
Within hours of going blind, Marley had quit her tears and thought of ways to continue being an artist – the texture of thick finger paints would allow her to feel where she had already painted. And the potter’s wheel wouldn’t be much of a problem.
“You have to close your eyes and let it spin to center,” she said. “There’s a lot of it that you think is visual that is not.”
The difficulty comes in setting up things so she can find them, and that’s where her brother comes in. Shortly after Marley went blind, he moved in with her. They now share the Victorian house she bought to enjoy her retirement in, complete with flowery wallpaper, a lush garden and an artist’s barn. He answers the door, sets up her sketching paper, tells her whether the pastel she has chosen is a light or dark shade.
“I find color is arbitrary. It doesn’t matter if you have a red chicken or a purple horse,” Marley said. “You just need the hint of something there and you, the viewer, will complete it.”
Marley said people often don’t believe she’s an artist when they know she can’t see, and she finds those lowered expectations frustrating and sad.
“My problem isn’t my blindness, it’s the blindness in other people who can’t see that I’m normal,” she said. “It’s like you’re less than perfect and don’t fit in anymore, when in fact you do, or you feel like you do.”
Strangers often won’t talk to her, like servers who ask her brother whether she needs more coffee. She has lost friends as well, who treat her like she’s a different person now that she’s blind.
“If I had my sight, I wouldn’t be living much differently than I am now,” Marley said. And contrary to the cliche, she says her other senses haven’t become stronger. She’s just more aware. “I heard those same sounds before but I didn’t pay attention to them.”