VISUAL AIDS

“We had a blank slate. The challenge

was we only had so many words to do it in, so they needed to

be the right words.” Karen Berniker, FAMSF manager of

access programs

of works in their permanent collections as well as in temporary exhibitions, then making the descriptions accessible by mobile device, app and/or as part of docent-led tours.

• Increasing opportunities for haptic (touch-based) experiences with three-dimensional art, or 3-D replicas of art.

• Ensuring that museum websites are compatible with technological tools for visionimpaired visitors and that accessibility resources are easy to find for patrons.

• Improving large-print signage, including braille, tactile maps and audio directions.

• Educating front-of-thehouse staff and security guards about accessibility accommodations and basic disability courtesy training.

Yarnell and Berniker point to criteria for enhanced descriptions that can best help museumgoers visualize a work of art in their minds. After providing the basics of artist, medium, materials and size, a general description of what the work depicts and from what perspective it is presented helps set the scene.

For example, a portion of an extended description developed by the Blind Posse for FAMSF’s Edgar Degas’ charcoal drawing “Seated Bather Drying Her Neck” reads: “With the perspective of a voyeur, we look down upon an unclothed woman seated on a low chair,” then describes the subject’s position “facing away from us, toward the right side of the image . ... She bends her head forward, raising her left arm to hold up her long red hair, as she dries the back of her neck with another white towel held in her right hand.”

When describing the colors in a work, using adjectives that refer to familiar objects with specific hues can help people make associations, Yarnell notes. So the Degas description refers to both

“peachy pink skin,” “a dark, salmon-pink bathtub with spots of blue gray and glints of white along the rim” and “rich fiery tones of yellow, orange and red, mixed with white and pale gray.”

Descriptions should also consider how the artist conveys volume (is an object solid or transparent?) and whether or not figures in a work — or a sculptural work itself — cast shadows that are part of the

experience of a work. It’s also OK to offer a degree of interpretation, like what you believe the artist wants to convey, Yarnell said. Referring to other senses like smell or touch can also be helpful.

Examples the Blind Posse guidelines provide suggest evoking the way the wood in a room depicted in a painting would smell, or discussing how a coat in a painting looks like it would feel scratchy because of the quick brushstrokes of the artist.

Yarnell acknowledges that between limited museum staffing and the limits of the human attention span, it’s unlikely all works in a museum or exhibition will receive expanded descriptions. But he believes getting descriptions for select works from museums’ permanent collections and temporary shows is an important step forward in expanding who can participate

Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Thomas Hovenden, “The Last Moments of John Brown,” circa 1884. The expanded description: “In this exterior scene, a crowd of people surround abolitionist John Brown as he descends a flight of stairs and pauses to kiss a baby. Brown emerges from a red brick building and stands near the bottom right of the stairs. He leans over a railing to the right to kiss an AfricanAmerican baby being held up to him by a barefoot African-American woman in ragged clothing whose head is covered in a bright red scarf. Brown is rail thin with a shock of gray hair and a long beard.”

Victor Rowley Stanley Yarnell has worked on creating new aids for visually impaired museumgoers.