For anyone who’s following my blog post on twitter – please see my (Lisa J. Murphy/tactile mind) blog post at www.tactilemindbook.com for full story. For those with a vision impairment link is on right of screen under “pages”. Click on  “updates blog”. This story will be top of page (most recent first). Click on title “A bit about how the media chaos started for TACTILE MIND”. to get full story.

Just going back in time from my last post…occasionally over the past 2 years, I had sent out emails about tactile mind: A book of nude photographs for the blind/vision impaired to various local press telling them to check out my site. Unfortunately shooting white plastic can be difficult, and the pictures on my site had been difficult to read. By sheer luck, about a month ago now, I had managed to take some great pictures of the pages of my book (natural daylight) in front of my kitchen window. Out went the emails again. I received a phone call from Sarah Barmak (who I believe was an intern) at the Toronto Star.
We did a phone interview as I made my way up Spadina Ave., through Chinatown on a busy Friday afternoon, on my way to my restaurant job. Due to over staffing at the restaurant, I received the night off, and went home and emailed Sarah a picture of Diagram 2/ Man in Arctic Mask to illustrate her article.

This article came out 2 days later in the Sunday Toronto Star. I picked up a couple copies of the paper on the way to the gym, and spent the day doing garden work,  and chatting with my neighbour.

The next morning I had a early doctors’ appointment and when I got off the subway at the Dufferin station, The Daily Telegraph (London, U.K) called for an interview. The gentleman was very nice and informed me that pictures of my work had made it into all media throughout Britain. OK. I then got on the Dufferin bus and CBS called for a live interview. Nothing like being on public transit and having CBS call. I had to get them to call me back, and hoofed it home.

I’m not really used to writing about myself (Lisa J. Murphy) in the first person, but I have to do my daily blog and so I will try.  It’s amazing that no matter how old I am, as soon as I catch the flu, I resort to my 12 year old self.

If you’re just tuning in now to this blog site, i’ll give you a quick catch-up.

tactile mind is a book of nude (3-D) photographs for the blind & vision impaired. I make this book by myself  & by hand. It is self-published. I would say it’s a collector’s item, because of  the uniqueness of this project and  handmade nature of this book.  The tactile diagrams are made from photographs I have actually taken (photographs are not shown on my website). This book has received so much attention, because it is being heralded as the first book of nude photographs for the blind and vision impaired in the world. People everywhere have opinions on this work calling it “erotic” , “sensual”, “original art”, “fetish – orientated”, “pornographic!?” and some people don’t like it at all. I think it’s really great that a book created for the blind and vision impaired has resulted in international dialogue.

What can I say today about ‘tactile mind’? Well, I wish I felt well enough to press some pages and bind a couple of books – instead of hanging out in bed, toilet paper roll beside me, waiting for my next sneeze.

Local press is picking up on this work – slowly but surely. Canada with it’s conservative thinking is starting to come around. Amazing, considering the U.S. and European networks picked up the story a couple of weeks ago.  But hey,Canada really is a beautiful country to live in, and Toronto itself has pockets of beauty – you just have to know were to find them.

One of my favorite interviews has to be the one for CNN – I had fed-ex’d my book to them the day before and I get a phone call from the producer who says “we’re going to interview you in 10 minutes”. Can anybody guess the number of cigarettes I nervously smoked waiting for that call? wow!

I believe the BBC world service interview was a couple of days before that. I was meant to be on camera – travelling across Toronto to get to an address that didn’t exist – they had booked the interview in Ottawa. So I did the interview in my boyfriend’s truck in the middle of  Toronto rush-hour traffic. If anyone out there  has to do a high-profile interview where somebody is unhappy with your idea or product, just breathe & try to keep your cool, and do the best you can. Those of you that  have  listened to this interview will know what I’m talking about…..It can be downloaded from the first page of this site www.tactilemindbook.com or on the wall page of my Facebook site.

I could keep writing, but my coughing fits are killing me.

Until tomorrow, Lisa