Blindness has always been seen as a crippling disability that can end your career especially if you’re a visual artist. But it wasn’t the same for John Bramblitt because his blindness sparked his career as an artist instead of pulling him down. Bramblitt started to paint in 2001, the same year when he lost his eyesight due to epilepsy. The unfortunate took place when he changed his epilepsy medication which had a wrong reaction in his body causing him permanent blindness. His epileptic seizures got so severe that the damage caused his vision to bounce from 20/400, which is double the limit for legal blindness to complete blindness. Although he maintained his light perception, seeing shadows and colors was not part of his life anymore.
John Bramblitt is “functionally blind,” which implies that his eyes can only differentiate between sunlight and darkness. Despite such restrictions, he has been able to develop a novel way to paint, which is by using textured paints that let him feel his way through the canvas. This is what he has to say about his technique of painting, “Basically what I do is replace everything that the eyes would do for a sighted artist with the sense of touch.” The raised lines take care of finding your placement on the canvas. All of the bottles and paint tubes in my studio are Brailled, and when mixing colors, I use recipes. In other words, I will measure out different portions of each color that I need to produce the right hue. This is no different than using a recipe to bake a cake. “
When asked about the incident, it was told that it is not his eyes that have lost their sight, in, fact, it is the brain, the part of the brain that processes the visual information has been impaired. He says that it’s been a blessing cause had it been the other way round; he would have been able to see everything, but the part of the brain that stores the memories, the experiences and the thoughts would have been impaired. So, the blind painter is glad that he lost his eyes and retained his thoughts. In addition to the eyesight, Bramblitt also lost about 40% of his hearing sensations and has been using hearing aids since then. The blind artist is known for his technique of painting which has been named as John Bramblitt's 'Art of Transcendence.'
When asked about what inspired him to start painting with a functional blindness, he said, “At first the idea of being able to draw without eyesight didn’t even occur to me. It wasn’t until a year after going blind that I began to figure out a way to be able to draw again. Basically what I do is replace everything that the eyes would do for a sighted artist with the sense of touch. When you break it down, the eyes really only do two things for a painter; they allow you to know your placement on canvas, and it allows you determine color. Over time I have developed different techniques that allow me to be more precise when it comes to laying down the lines. The first art shows that I did I never told anyone that I was blind. I didn’t tell people that I was blind not because I was ashamed, but because I didn’t want it to affect the way they perceived the art.
At present, he is living in Denton, Texas, USA. His art has been sold in a number of countries, and he has been a part of various international magazines, TV shows, and radio channels.
Do you think people like John Bramblitt can imbibe the lost inspiration in our present generation? Let us know in the comment section below.
