Museum Events: May-July

Over the years, our Museum has offered some great Saturday events. Through our Bards & Storytellers program, we’ve hosted performances by entertainers who are blind and deaf-blind, including two by bluegrass fiddler Michael Cleveland. We’ve formed a theater company for braille readers and presented performances for the public every year – for ten years! We’ve led tours of Clifton, the Louisville Waterfront, Cave Hill Cemetery, and sites of early industry in Louisville. With guest artists, we’ve offered several art workshops, including jewelry making, Christmas ornaments, and one called, “Mapping Your Dream.” We’ve taught braille for the sighted to hundreds of people. With the Kentucky School for the Blind, we sponsored an exhibition game of beep baseball, and we’ve partnered with the Louisville Nature Center for programs on “Animals in Your Backyard” and sensory explorations of nature.

Whew.

Saturday events are designed for people who are blind or low vision and people who are sighted, together. But for the past two years, audiences have been hard to find, and so much has been on hold. Now that we’re back in the swing of things, we can announce our Saturday events for the rest of 2022. Remember that all our events are free, but we do ask that you register. Do that by calling 502-899-2213 or by emailing kcarpenter@aph.org.

Here’s the ones we have scheduled for the next few months.

Painting Tactile Landscapes

Saturday, May 21, 2022, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm

Despite their portrayal of deep forests, mountainsides, and ocean waves, most famous landscape paintings are essentially flat, deceiving the viewer with painted shadows and dots of color. Not so Vincent Van Gogh. He uses wide, thick swatches of paint, traceable by a fingertip (if, of course, we were allowed to touch them). In this workshop, participants, guided by guest artist Patrice Ising, will create their own imagined landscapes with paintings as knowable by touch as they are by sight.

Tour of the Louisville Waterfront Garden

Saturday, May 28, 2022, 10:30 am-12:30 pm

On May 28, we’re partnering with the Waterfront Botanical Gardens, which is just up the street from us on Frankfort Avenue in Louisville. It’s a beautiful place. Think of it as a zoo for plants, thousands of them, from the tiniest crocuses to towering trees. Chief Horticulture and Education Officer Jamie Burghardt will give us on a tour of the Gardens, paying particular attention to sensory exploration. All of this is free, but in return, the staff asks that we stick around for a wrap-up session. They’d like to know, from us, just how accessible their facility is to people who are blind or low vision, and what we might recommend to make it even more accessible. That’s such an opportunity to have our voices heard when the staff is still in the process of creating the gardens. For this one, we’re offering transportation from APH.

Kids Day

Saturday June 4, 2022, 10:30 am-12:30 pm

Our annual Kids’ Day is on June 4, all day. We’ll set up stations around the museum, each staffed by one or two of our museum education associates. All of the associates are blind or low vision and are especially adept at answering kids’ wackiest questions about blindness. Kids can choose to hang with some dog guides and their partners, learn how braille works and write some simple messages in braille, explore technology that has changed the lives of people who are blind or low vision, and try out the ways kids who are blind master the same school subjects they do. No registration is needed.

Braille for the Sighted

Saturday, June 18, 2022, 10:30 am-12:30 pm
Saturday, July 23, 2022, 10:30 am-12:30 pm

The first of our “Braille for the Sighted” summer workshops begins in June. Many sighted people can read braille – though they do it by sight, not by touch. Simple braille is not difficult to learn. Within an hour, we can have you reading and writing braille on a (what else?) braillewriter. There is another Braille for the Sighted event in July.

We have more events coming up starting in August, but that’ll be another blog. Find these events and so much more on our website.

Katie Carpenter is the Museum Educator at the Museum of the American Printing House for the Blind.