A great example of my stellar drawing skills (not!). Usually I photograph my subjects, so this was an entirely new pandemic experience for me. This is image 2. I ended up using the bit of sculpture picture as the title for my web page, but not without posting this one first. It is just pencil on plain white paper. I drew it sitting at my backyard patio table.
Just a couple pictures of me (Lisa J. Murphy) pressing pages of tactile mind at home. For those who have a vision impairment or blindness, or anyone who is simply curious; I will give you a quick description. In the two pictures, I am putting the master copy Braille page of Diagram 13/ Bullet Belt onto the thermoform machine. I am laying the page within the confines of the machine; the base and frame of the thermoform machine is layered in tape to get the best suction. Soon I lay a piece of thermoform plastic on top, press the edges down with the frame, pull the heat source over the diagram and the plastic, the vacuum suction goes – and voila! A 3-D thermoform diagram page.
Sounds really easy. In reality many things can go wrong. The diagram, for starters can break – but that is the worst case scenario. Lately, I’ve had a couple problems in my master pages with a knee cap dislodging , a couple nipples coming loose, a background shredding, hearts moving, and a vagina crumbling. Nothing major, very fixable – just general wear and tear on the images.
Also, my trusty thermoform machine can be a little tempermental. I just give her lots of time to heat up, and some break periods throughout days when I’m printing.
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
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.
For her tactile diagrams, Lisa began with an idea of what she would like to photograph, and who. She would make the majority of masks and costumes from household goods, grab a subject, dress them up, and start shooting with 35mm film and her trusty manual Nikon. When she received her photographs back from the lab, Lisa would then decide which one might work the best for tuning into a tactile diagram and would go from there.
1. Lisa would enlarge the photograph to a size she would want to work with.
2.Lisa would then layer and build the photograph upwards with clay, metal,cardboard, string – anything that wouldn’t burn or give off toxic fumes at high heat.
3. This diagram would then go into an oven to bake/set – hopefully not breaking / cracking with the heat.
4. Out of the oven, the diagram would cool and then be placed in the thermoform machine with a piece of heavy Braillon (aka. thermoform plastic) on top – hopefully not breaking / cracking with the heat.
5. 3-D imprint is made into the plastic, and the page is taken to a blind proofreader for feedback.
6. Steps 2-5 then repeated until diagram is done to the best of her abilities, and is completely understandable by a proofreader(s); correctly depicting her photograph.
-Each image would take approximately 50 hours in total; from conception to completion.
