Arapahoe Community College

Whirling overhead at all times are stars, planets – whole galaxies. Humans have always wondered at them and about them. Blindness is no impediment to curiosity, including in the area of astronomy, nor is there any reason blind people can’t learn much in this field, often thought to be too visual. Some have even become astronomers themselves.

So, with the help of Arapahoe Community College Astronomy Coordinator and Instructor Jennifer Jones, this month’s FAST (Fun Activities and Skills Training) Friday program for blind youth will teach about the stars with tactile graphics of constellations, 3D printings of telescopes, and, finally, a trip outside to see what is in Friday night’s sky. Members of ACC’s Astronomy Club will be helping out too. We’ll also learn a little about the science of sonification as it applies to studying various astronomical phenomena.

March 9 will be Movie Night And our next FAST Friday at the Colorado Center for the Blind – our monthly activity for blind youth and their families. We’ll kick the evening off with pizza, then watch the documentary film, “Do You Dream in Color?” It follows four California high school students who are blind as they strive to follow their dreams. 1 hr 14 min with audio description. Popcorn provided. Discussion will follow.

April 13 will be Contact the Astronomy Constellations! we’ll have Arapahoe Community College Astronomy Instructor Jennifer Jones and her students work with us to understand the night sky, stars, constellations and everything! The evening will feature dozens of tactile graphics and 3D representations. The time will be determined, so stay tuned.

Here are a few photos from the Shared Visions reception at the Colorado Gallery of the Arts at Arapahoe Community College on Thursday night. Everyone got hands on with pieces from Nathan Abels’ painting and drawing classes. CCB students also had laser-cuts of drawings they made in Ann Cunningham’s art class with accompanying Haiku, and CCB alum Jenny Callahan had a number of stone carvings and a bronze in the show.

The Seniors art class had bowls thrown on the wheel in Katie Caron’s ceramics studio. Katie brought her daughter, who insisted on wearing sleepshades so she could try to identify the art tactilely.

Editor’s Note: Here’s the announcement from ACC for this year’s “Shared Visions” tactile art exhibit. It’s the fourth year we collaborated on this event, and a highlight of the fall for our students and staff. The show will include work by CCB students and perhaps from one or two staff members as well. Worth checking out! (Photos by Mike Thompson.)

Arapahoe Community College to host Shared Visions tactile art exhibit

LITTLETON, Colo. (Oct. 24, 2017) – Students from Arapahoe Community College and the Colorado Center for the Blind will present a collaborative and fully-accessible exhibit of multi-sensory and tactile art entitled “Shared Visions” from Nov. 9–22 at the Colorado Gallery of the Arts at ACC. Festivities include an opening reception on Thursday, Nov. 9, from 5 pm–8 pm.

It’s that time of the year. Just as we start to think about turkey and stuffing with cranberries, it’s time for blind kids in the area to get hands-on with shark innards!

As he has for more than a decade, Arapahoe Community College’s Biology Professor Terry Harrison will lead a shark dissection at CCB on Friday, November 18. Harrison has partnered with CCB to ensure that blind kids in Colorado get actual experience in this one aspect of the STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). Participants will handle the scalpels, determine sex, examine the lungs, liver and those sharp little dog shark teeth.

Start time is 10 a.m. on Friday and wraps up at 1 p.m. following pizza (no anchovies).

Students, teachers, or parents can contact Youth Services Director Brent Batron for more information or to reserve a spot – after all, there are only going to be so many sharks!

With just a week to go before the third annual exhibit, “Shared Visions Collaborative Artworks”, some Center art students traveled to Arapahoe Community College’s to make some art and to offer some feedback to painting students on their tactile works.

For their very first class with Ann Cunningham, the newest group of CCB art students composed objects on a flat plane and then used a thermoform machine put together by Ceramics Instructor Katie Caron. Some of the results are shown in the photo above – plastic sheets that, using a combination of heat and a vacuum, conform to the shapes of the objects.

It’s basically the same process used in product packaging, but way more legit.

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 Older Blind Programs.

The “Shared Visions” exhibit at Arapahoe Community College’s Colorado Gallery of the Arts on November 19 and 20 was a big success, featuring numerous multi-media and very tactile paintings by students in Nathan Abels’ painting classes, as well as pottery pieces from joint activities between Center students in Ann Cunningham’s art classes here and those in classes taught by Katie Caron, Ceramics Coordinator at ACC.

In addition, the cooperative activities and exhibit were featured on the Breaking Blind YouTube channel in two videos. See what Maureen has to say and what she experiences:

For most of us, the run up to the Thanksgiving holiday doesn’t conjure thoughts of sharks, but it does here at the Colorado Center for the Blind. That’s because for nearly a decade, Arapahoe Community College’s Biology Professor Terry Harrison has been conducting his shark dissection here with blind kids from around the Denver Metro area as well as from the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind (CSDB).

This year’s event is Friday, November 13, from 10 a.m. to noon in our gym at 2233 W. Shepperd Ave.

“We set out to show that blind kids can actively participate in STEM subjects in school, and even consider STEM careers,” says Youth Services Director Brent Batron. “Terry has been a great ally for us in accomplishing this critical part of that goal.”

For nearly two decades, Colorado artist Ann Cunningham has been teaching art classes at the Colorado Center for the Blind. Initially drawn to us because she was curious about how blind people experience art (such as the stone carvings she produces), she has become one of North America’s leading teachers, advocates and innovators with respect to access to the arts for the blind – both as observers and creators.

Natalia at the wheel in the ceramics studio on the ACC campus.