Legally blind artist has helped many see
Charles Curtis Blackwell lost sight, but not vision, at 20
The fog rolled into Sacramento, and the bright red traffic lights flashed to green as Charles Curtis Blackwell squinted his eyes and froze at the steering wheel. He couldn’t bring himself to turn the wheel or press the gas. Everything was cloudy. He recognized the green hue but couldn’t see if any cars were coming. Angry horns honked behind him. He narrowed his eyes again. The horns kept blaring like a broken instrument. Finally, he pressed the gas as hesitantly as tiptoeing down a squeaky wood floor and eased his way into the grey blanket of fog.
“That was it,” Blackwell said. “I didn't even go to sign papers to drop out of college. I just said forget it.”
He was at Sacramento City College studying visual art when he and his friends spent a day at a Santa Cruz beach. They all climbed out of the van except for Blackwell, who stayed behind to finish his book, promising he’d meet them shortly after — a mere eight minutes later. When he left, he unknowingly headed in the opposite direction of his friends. The terrain become steeper, and suddenly, he accidentally plunged off a sharp drop and hurt his head. After a couple months, a blotch clouded one eye and then spread to both. This was the beginning of macular degener-
ation. At age 20, he was legally blind.
In his 67 years, Blackwell has worked more than 47 jobs from Washington, D.C., to the Bay Area, but nothing could keep him from his art, even blindness.
“I was everything but a taxi cab driver,” he said with a chuckle.
He thought his dream to be a professional artist was dead. He returned to school, eventually earning a bachelor’s degree in sociology from California State University Chico.
When a grant for the Sacramento County Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) Artist Exhibit became available in 1977, a friend encouraged him to apply, and he was selected. His first gig was to paint Braille dots on a sevenfoot canvas.
“I began to realize later on it was a Godgiven talent,” he said. “It was still there even though I had this accident.”
While Blackwell, who lives in Oakland, was volunteering at the William James Association Prison Arts Program, one of the inmates asked him, “When you lost your eyesight did you lose your will to live?” He admitted: “Yeah, I lost my will to live.”
The inmate shook Blackwell’s hand and said, “I’m glad you made that decision to live because you’ve really been an inspiration here today.”