Why was grade-one Braille used for ‘tactile mind’? What does it say?

Lisa worked with professional Braillist(s) who used grade-one Braille, so (she felt) the work could be easily understood by a wider audience. This  Braille is written letter by letter, so even a sighted person could download the Braille alphabet off the computer and stumble through the descriptions of the photographs.  The Braille accompanying ‘tactile mind’ is in (American) English, which is the standard for North America.

The Braille describes the photograph – how it is cropped, the mask, if the subject is turned to the side, etc. Generally when a blind reader  ‘sees’ a tactile diagram of a person, the diagram is head to feet, facing forward.  The Braille description given in ‘tactile mind’ helps guide the reader through the photographs for a better understanding.

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How and when did the idea for ‘tactile mind’ happen?

5 years ago, Lisa J. Murphy was making tactile diagrams for vision impaired & blind childrens’ educational books, and thought “why not?”. Lisa had received a certificate in Tactile Graphics from the Institute for the Blind, and decided to use her new  knowledge with her own photographs of artistic nudes. Lisa wanted to challenge herself, and she began to create tactile pictures for adults. Over the next 2 years, her idea turned into a book consisting of 17 3-D pictures, with grade-one Braille accompaniment.

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