Tactile art and art shows are in the works this fall, with collaboration and coordination from the Colorado Center for the Blind’s Ann Cunningham as the common medium.
First, Arapahoe Community College’s now-annual “Shared Visions” tactile art show will open with a reception on November 10 at the Colorado Gallery of the Arts from 5 to 8 p.m. The show , which will be open to the public until November 18, will feature tactile and sensory art from ACC Painting and Ceramics students, as well as works from CCB students and staff in several media. CCB’s Ann Cunningham teaches classes each week to Independence Training Students and to Seniors.
It’s the third year the show has been held at ACC, starting with Nathan Abels’ painting classes in 2014, and last year adding ceramics classes taught by Katie Caron, The collaborations are not only between the teaching artists, but also students. Shared class meetings at both CCB and ACC’s ceramics studio are a key component. This year, three classes of CCB art students will contribute works in both hand-built and wheel-thrown ceramics, as well as thermaform representations of haiku poems.
Open now at Boulders University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR, but commonly referred to as NCAR for one of it’s best-known projects), is another tactile art show as part of UCAR’s Community Art Program . Featuring the work of Colorado stone sculptor Ann Cunningham, along with ACC’s Nathan Abels and ACC students. The UCAR show, under discussion for nearly two years, features Cunningham’s bas reliefs in stone as well as three-dimensional sculptures, and includes haiku representations from both painting and ceramics students at ACC.
The exhibit space is in the expansive cafeteria within the laboratory building and is open daily from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on weekdays and from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on weekends and holidays. Cunningham and CCB students will be present on Saturday, November 5 for UCAR’s Super Science Saturday and again on November 12 for the show’s reception.
Cunningham has been teaching art to students at the Colorado Center for the Blind since the 1990s. All students take part in a 4-week class involving learnign to experience and to make art. Ann’s pieces in the UCAR gallery will include a fairy tale, a murder of crows, and a relief of a bird skeleton, among other pieces.
Nathan Abels is a painter and photographer featured in Denver galleries.