Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Shedding light on the world of the blind
I shouldn’t have been, and yet, I was surprised to see a print of Andrew Wyeth’s “Christina’s World” at the RoyerGreaves School for the Blind near Paoli.
The students are unable to see it, but never the less, the painting depicts one of Wyeth’s regular models, Christina Olson, reclining in a Maine field.
During the 1970s, a neighbor, and thousands of other Americans, hung this print above the couch in the den.
Like the students I interacted with at RoyerGreaves this week, Olson was disabled. Most of 11 students and 28 adult clients at Royer-Greaves are disabled in some other way, in addition to being blind.
When I viewed this classic 1947 Wyeth painting at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, I experienced a sense of loss. My spirit was etched with somber tones. The canvas is mostly brown.
So, why did everyone display one of the 20th Century’s best known pieces of art so prominently? It had seemed like a bummer. Had I missed something?
This summer I made a trip to the Farnsworth Museum in Rockland, Maine, which permanently houses dozens of Wyeths.
I then made a pilgrimage to “that” Maine field. I wanted to stand on the spot where Wyeth had painted Christina, but my emotions were too strong.
I settled on getting close. When I turned around to view the house, from Olson’s point of view, I instantly relaxed and my mood turned tranquil.
That afternoon I spent in that Maine field was uplifting. Christina saw a lot; her world was heaven, with a bit of brown purgatory mixed in.
The atmosphere at Royer-Greaves was no different when I attended a music group session there.
The students bobbed and weaved to live guitar, piano and vocals and smiles were abundant.
By the end of the group session, almost everyone was in a better mood then when they arrived.
“The whole campus is full of music,” said Suzanne Kane-Filshill, a 14-year veteran music therapist.
There are bells that chime, bongos and xylophone in a courtyard and playground. It’s all accessible by wheelchair.
The instruments are huge and feature interesting patterns and shapes that feel good to the touch.
I sat down at the piano with 71-year-old Ron Curry, who has been blind since birth. Curry was a student and teacher at the school and is now an assistant to the music therapist.
“Music as we know it is the universal language,” he said. “It speaks to all of us.”
Curry noted that everybody loves music.
“It makes you feel good to express yourself,” he said. “I give it all back to the students.”
I asked Curry and KaneFilshill what it is like to never see a photo or to know what different colors look like.
“You can’t miss something you never had,” Kane-Filshill told me.
Kane-Filshill also said that the blind sometimes have a “heightened awareness” of music. She told me about three students with perfect pitch, who can identify any key punched on a piano, by note.
She also said that a deaf and blind student perfectly rocks his body to the beat.
“It’s a feeling as well as a sense of music,” she said. “If we change songs he’s exactly on beat.
“There must be vibrations in the air.”
Music group starts off with the “Hello Song,” introducing the group to each other through the “Talk About the Day Song,” as the group sings a “Date Song” concerning the day of the month and week. Students and clients pick from a list of songs to be played live by Curry and Kane-Filshill, followed by the “Good Bye Song.”
The type of songs rotate from Halloween songs in October to Beatles Day, to Gospel Day and includes songs from Disney. For a month at time, the students practice for twice yearly shows.
This week, students chose from a list containing “We Are the World,” “Down on the Corner” and “Johnny B. Goode.”
The students, most of whom are unable to speak, use a “communications device” or “switch” to pick a song.
Students are given two sides of the device to choose from. After receiving an audible cue, students make a choice between a bumpy side and fuzzy side.
Student Lia Berastain strummed a pink guitar for most of the 45 minute group session.
“I just like holding it,” Berastain said about the guitar. “I’m just learning and getting better.”
Like many teenage girls, she enjoys Disney, Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus and Jonas Brothers music. She is also a big Beatles fan.
“I like to feel how the music is,” she said. “I like the beat. I like the sound of it. I like to feel.”
Whether it is a painting of a woman in a field or the sound of a xylophone in a playground, isn’t so much of art about feeling?