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Kelly Mc: Sally Barker is an artist with a calling. She wants visually impaired people
to enjoy paintings, especially world-famous art.
With Feeling - Kelly Mc: You’re not ripping off the artist. You’re trying to create
a texture of color so you can enjoy art….
Sally Barker: Whether you’re blind or color-blind or have macular degeneration or whatever.
It’s like, “Once more, with feeling.”
Kelly Mc: Sally spends many quiet hours with just needle and thread. She admits quilters
support her….but many duck the painting-into-quilt challenge.
Kelly Mc: Is there a market for the visually-impaired to enjoy visual arts?
Sally Barker: No, there’s no market at all!
Kelly Mc: I won’t say a market but is there a calling for it or is it one of those little
niches you fill in this world?
Sally Barker: I’m afraid it’s a little niche. Most anything…this can’t be reproduced.
I mean it’s all artwork that I’ve done myself.
Kelly Mc: And all of Sally Barker’s art is meant to be touched, pressed and interpreted
using one - or more - senses.
Kelly Mc: Lots of people don’t want patrons touching their art.
Sally Barker: Oh, that’s one of the rules. You never touch it.
Kelly Mc: So, do we have to ask your permission before we touch one of your quilts?
Sally Barker: No, no.
Kelly Mc: How do you behave around your work?
Sally Barker: You put your hands on it. You put your hands on it and you touch it. Sometimes,
you close your eyes but, for the most part, you just touch it and feel the sensation.
Your eyes are one language coming to you, your fingertips are another language coming
to you.
Kelly Mc: Ms. Barker figured out that our concept of color is relative and there’s
no reason a color couldn’t be describe by a texture.
Kelly Mc: This is a traditional quilt with a different philosophy.
Sally Barker: That’s right. It’s all hand-made and it’s meant to communicate color to people
who can’t touch it and can’t tell by the touch. This is simply a code for color.
Kelly Mc: Sally created a color code that she follows when quilting and that she offers
to patrons who let their fingers wander.
Sally Barker: Yellow is always the top and it is flannel. Blue - wool. And red - silky
satin. Think of your wife’s night gowns.
Kelly Mc: Or think of Sunday afternoons the way George Seurat did in this famous painting.
Sally Barker: I buy a poster the size I want and then I copy it, just lay it down and copy.
And then, from that copy, I go to freezer paper and make patterns.
Kelly Mc: That sounds high tech>
Sally Barker: Isn’t it high tech? All these little pieces of paper.
Kelly Mc: This is two years’ worth of work for you, cutting all of this and then sewing…
Sally Barker: And then finding the pieces. This is a box of brown. This is a box of red,
orange - and finding the colors that match and then cutting out the pattern and then
sewing it onto here.
Kelly Mc: You must be true to your own color wheel.
Sally Barker: Yes.
Kelly Mc: You’re never going to mess that up or make that mistake.
they disintegrate, that’s just fine.
Fraying on them - Sally Barker: These are going to last, maybe, thirty to fifty years
but then they’re gone because you want people to touch them and it will be fraying on them.
Kelly Mc: You’re saying, “wear me out.” It’s okay that, if in fifty years, we don’t
have a quilt left of yours. It’s because people enjoyed it.
Sally Barker: That’s right. People enjoyed it and the Blind are brought into the community
of people who can enjoy great works of art.