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Art museums and galleries usually are places for the eyes…and one of their most stringent rules is “Don’t Touch!” Our unique exhibit, Please Touch Again, breaks art museums’ sacred rule by asking visitors to please touch the art, giving them a rare opportunity to enjoy a multisensory experience of artworks. People with vision loss will be encouraged to attend the exhibit, which will be labeled in Braille and large print. Park Docents will offer verbal description tours as well during regular Art in the Park tours (Tuesdays and Thursdays at 11am). Please Touch Again follows up Tohono Chul Park’s two previous exhibits on the Please Touch themes. In 2004 those exhibits received the VSAarts/Met Life Foundation Award of Excellence in Arts Access and in 2005 the Park was recognized by the Museum Association of Arizona for the exhibits’ success in linking museums and communities.
Artists across the country submitted work to be considered for Please Touch Again, demonstrating their enthusiasm for people to handle their artwork and, in a sense, offering to share their own experiences of working with art media such as clay, wood, fibers, metals, paper and mixed media. Characteristics such as surface texture, form, negative-positive space, temperature of materials and audio features are strong qualities in the body of work selected for the exhibit. For example, ceramic artist, Marcy Wrenn, sculpted two works in clay featuring tactile designs inspired by Australian Aboriginal art and African designs. Also working in clay, Debbie Jensen created a desert-inspired piece depicting three things that any Arizona school child knows to never touch: a beady Gila monster, delicate birds’ eggs and fuzzy prickly pear cactus pads. On the softer side, Rachel Hunnicutt knitted a tempting-to-touch piece that resembles a fuchsia- colored sea anemone, and Ginny Tompkins created an interactive, mixed media piece featuring activities designed to stimulate all of our senses, including (its title) the “Sixth Sense.”
Read the large print gallery notes |
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