Good afternoon everyone! Marisol here! Today, we have a guest blogger, Donna Ranskinski from Fayetteville, NC. She is a professor from Roosevelt University in Chicago. Please enjoy.

Through My Eyes

Claude Monet was a fantastic impressionist painter when he was alive. The colors, the vibrancy of the flora and the light airy dreamlike mood Monet created was a fantasy come true. The Robin Williams film What Dreams May Come reminded me much about Monet paintings and how one can see what the want to see in heaven, much like Monet wanted to see in his paintings.Monet was a special painter because he could not see color and images like many people do. Monet was legally blind, as am I.

A few years ago, I was diagnosed with macular degeneration, an eye disease that causes rapid sight lose. I am completely blind in the left eye, and 75% blind in the right. This, however, does not deter me from doing the things I love: teaching, writing, and visiting Chicago’s wonderful art museums. But look at this image:

Many people may see the wonderful colors, definitions, and tones that encompass the entire composition. Here is what I see:

Blurs of colors, pixels, disimbiguous lines, and dullness. Seeing this breaks my heart. How can I appreciate art this way?

When my husband and I go to the museum, there is plenty of help available. I see art through guided tours where I, with the help of skin-tight gloves, get to feel the portraits on the walls. Most art has distinct textures, and I can tell if a picture has lips, eyes, flora, fauna, or skies by the peaks and valleys of the paint. I bet many readers here have never experienced art this way and I dare you to try it. Have someone paint a portrait using acrylic paints, then, once the potrait is dry, ask someone to blindfold you and then touch every aspect of the image. Can you tell what you “see” by feeling? Say out loud what you feel and let the other person tell you if you’re right. By feeling, I learned how to appreciate art more, and I am sure you will, as well.

Being blind has affected my life in good and bad ways. I cannot drive anymore, a priviledge that many individuals, especially young people, take for granted. I have to retire from teaching because I can no longer see my student’s faces or grade their papers. I can’t tell if my son is dressing up like on of those “Goths” or if my adopted daughter has experienced makeup. My husband quit his job as a couple’s therapist, which he will lie about and say he doesn’t have a degree in, but he changed his technology field to psychiatry because he loved helping couples more, just so he can freelance for psych magazines so he can watch the kids and drive me everywhere. I do not wish blindness on anyone. Marisol told me that in high school, students would walk around with shaded glasses and have someone guide them everywhere in order to experience what blindness is. That is not blindness because scratched up glasses does not equate the slow detrimental effects. Without warning, I started to lose my sight while watching my son swin in the swimming pool one summer. one minute, the crystal blue water shimmered in the sun, the next, gray and black spots. My life changed forever.

Readers, please don’t take anything for granted.

D.R

Tags: adoption, Art, blind, blindness, Claude Monet, Donna Ranskinski, Guest Blogger, image, macular degeneration, makeup, Monet, paint, portrait, Roosevelt university, Starry Night, Starry Starry night, teaching, Van Gogh, Vincent Van Gogh, Writing