Docents paint verbal pictures for museum visitors with vision loss

Donnie Wilburn lost nearly all of her sight about three years ago. After years of being an artist and an art docent at Seattle Art Museum, all she can see now are shadows.

But on a special tour Saturday — soon to be a regular offering at the museum — she came away as fulfilled as she did when her vision was strong.

Instead of gazing at paintings in the Picasso exhibit, she listened to detailed descriptions given by docents trained to paint verbal pictures of the artwork.

It's definitely a different way of viewing art, she said, but it was "as complete as seeing it visually."

The museum has led a handful of similar tours over the past four years. They've been so popular the museum has decided to hold them once a month.

It's one more way to make art accessible to all — part of a national and international movement to do so.

"Art is our culture, and it's our history," Wilburn, 65, said. "It's important to know about it."

On Saturday, four docents trained in visual description stood at four paintings in the Picasso exhibit, ready for the visitors with the guide dogs and the white canes. Some docents started with a description of the gallery itself to orient the visitors to their surroundings — mentioning the high ceilings and the white walls, and whether there were sculptures on platforms as well as the paintings.

Then they launched into each painting.

Anne Lipner, who stood in front of Picasso's "The Kiss," talked about how, if that painting were a photograph, it would be considered a head shot, with two large heads taking up most of the canvas. How the man and the woman are linked from nose to chin by a black line, their skin thickly painted in a cream color.

"It's the color of mature skin," she said.

She also talked about the eyes, how big they are and how the man's eyes look out in surprise, or bewilderment, or fear — it's hard to tell which. And how the woman seems like she's on tiptoe with her hair streaming down her back, one eye gazing fondly at the man, the other aimed straight at the viewer.

Lipner wove in some of the painting's history, too, and asked questions about the artist's intent, just as she would with any other group.

Then she directed the visitors to the large, white board brought by artist Hjylimar Hinn, whose father was on the tour.

With a thick bead of paint, Hinn had made full-size outlines of the four paintings so the visitors could touch as well as listen.

"Huge, huge," said Camille Jassny as a friend guided her hand over the head of the man in the outline of "The Kiss."

Many on the tour belong to a support group for people with vision loss, which has evolved into a nonprofit called Vision Loss Connections and has been helping the museum create these tours.

Afterward, the visitors discussed what they'd learned about Picasso and how the museum might improve tours for those with little or no sight.

Many said they would like more time with the painted outlines, which artist Hinn called a "Braille docent."

All loved the verbal description and said they would like even more detail.

Jassny, who helps organize the support group, said too many people with low vision stay home and feel sorry for themselves, and one of her goals is to get them to go out more. In addition to the art tours, Vision Loss Connections organizes a monthly book group, audio-described performances at 5th Avenue Theatre, and goalball games (in which the ball is full of bells). Soon the group will add a yoga class.

The museum docents said afterward that evoking artwork verbally is challenging, but it also deepens their understanding of the paintings.

They often run their descriptions by Wilburn, their former colleague, in advance.

"If I can pull up the image in my mind," Wilburn said, "they work."

It might seem odd that people who can't see would want to visit a museum. Wilburn said even her husband questioned why she would wish to go.

But there's more to the experience, she said, than the paintings themselves. The atmosphere of the museum and the discussion about the paintings — all of that together, she said, helps the pieces come alive.

Linda Shaw: 206-464-2359 or lshaw@seattletimes.com