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Registered charity no. 1013941
Toes
Alice Steffen

 
 


Sept. 09

Newsletter issue no. 208
 
News of Members
 
Danielle Knight was delighted when her photography entitled 'London SW1E 5JE' was selected by Jenni Lomax for the first of two exhibitions that are the Creekside Open 2009. This biannual exhilbtion showcases the work of conrtempoary artists living or working in London.
 
SW1E 5JE
 
 
[This picture is not what you think it is! Look again.]
 
Apart from her photography, Dani has been experimenting with light systems and has produced some interesting designs.
   

Switch Vortex

 
 
 
Welcome to new members:
 
Alice Steffen, a young sculptor who, while studying at Glasgow School of Art, was awarded a Student Exchange place at the prestigeous School of Art Institute, Chicago, the only British applicant among the 5 accepted from Europe. She has now just started working there in Avvanced Sculpture department.
(See "Toes" at the top of the page)
 
 
Patrick Cordwell

A photography graduate from LCC, showed us some of his very good work when he visited here earlier this month. He says ha is progressing from stills to film and moving images in general. He hopes to build a career in photo-journalism.

He was fortunate enough to be assessed at age 8, and did well on the science side at school, being good at physics and chemistry. "I'm OK at maths but a slow reader. I like to use audio books when available."

 
 
Sarah Murphy sends us these prints of drawings from life. She trained at Camberwell, Staffordshire University and finally at UCL, Farnham studying Animation.
Sarah Murphy screen print 1992
Sarah Murphy portrait at age 10

 

Jon Adams invites you to "Goose on the Hill" on 13th October at 17:00

Event: Goose on the Hill
What: Exhibit
Start Time: 13th October at 17:00
End Time: 22 November at 18:00
Where: Pallant House Gallery: The De'Longhi Print Room To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:

Goose on the Hill
 
Here are some examples of his work.
 
Tales from the waiting room. Spelling book covered weapon
   
All_the_words_I_never_wrote_JA
Joy_is_the_angel_that_whis-pers_in_my_ear_with_radio
 
 
Lennie Vavarides
Continues her enterprising efforts launching a new project in support of dyslexic writers, actors, and performers in a festival in London, see below:
 
 
 
From one of our youngest members, Brandon Arnold age 10.
 
"Tree"
Brandon Arnold
         
 

Obit
Mary Manning-Thomas
Sadly, we have to report the death of Mary after a life of enormously valuable work on behalf of dyslexics and other students disabled by our education system. She was a stalwart supporter of the Arts Dyslexia Trust since its foundation. Many people will remember her with gratitude for her help when she was Head of Remedial at Brickwall House (now Frewen College).

She continued working long after her official retirement and met the vicissitudes of old age with her usual great courage. She received county and national awards and recognition for her counselling work. We shall all miss her cheerful support

 
 
Mathew Durran has some exciting commissions in hand. Two now on permanent exhibition are illustrated here:-
 
"Migration" covering an area of 6m x 5m.
 

An all year round outdoor installation with 100 pieces of glass on show at
 
"Climate of Change" exhibition at Asuna Maksalas Gallery, Riga, Latvia (solo show)
Gallery installation
Now on permanent display at Mencendorfa nams Museum, Riga, Latvia.
 
Mat has also designed, fabricated and installed a low energy recycled glass furnace for Design Show Liverpool.
 
Storm Stones
Geoff Ball

The picture above was show at the Djanology Gallery, Nottingham University, where it was given pride of place. At 5ft wide it was the largest picture in the exhibition.


Geoff is at present working for a post grad. research degree at Lincoln University focusing on synosthesia.
 
 
Best news of the year!!!
 
The new edition of In The Mind's Eye is now in the bookshops, so order your copy quickly!

It is seventeen years since we welcomed the appearance of the first edition in our Newsletter saying: "...it represents the most significant turning point in educatio thought this century". How right we were! Because so it is proving to be.

Since then it has been translated into many different languages and achieved worldwide recognition, "a classic in its field"

At the Mall exhibition in 1992, we invited Tom over to England to give the first of his soon to be enormously popular illustrated talks, saying amongst other things:

 
 
"in the future, as computers take over many of our mundane clerical and calculating tasks, visual thinkers will surge to the forefront".
 
The 2nd edition epilogue adds some excellent new material - I've already marked several quotes e.g.:-
 
"There are many talents and abilites that are never measured by conventional psychological and academic tests, This needs to change."
 
ADT are working on this task now, attempting to desigh tests which identify the visual thinkers in contrast to the sequential, linear thinkers. A few years age I wrote in the introduction to my book on 3D drawing: "The really interesting question is what makes a Leonardo or Einstein different to the rest of us? The answer will come, I suspect, not from conventional sources but from the creative dyslexics themselves".
 
Tom quotes Professor TimMiles' words:
 
"Most of the people involved in the study and remediation of dyslexia are not dyslexic themselves {and} were excellent pupils in their own school days. Accordingly it may be very difficult for them to see the emerging great strengths and creative powers possessed by the students sitting before them, who seem such helpless fools in doing ever the most elementary academic work"
 
There is much else to inspire you - read on!
 
"Give what we have seen {historically, in this book} it seems clear that there is some connection... between high visual talents and various forms of learning difficulties."
 
"Some of the most original thinkers in the physial sciences, engineering, mathematics, politics, literature, and other areas relied heavily on visual modes of thought, employing images instead of words or numbers. Some of these same thinkers have shown evidence of astriking range of learning problems, including difficulties with reading, writing, calculations, speaking, and memory."
 
"According to recent research, there are good neurological reasons for the apparent association of visual talents with verbal difficulties."
 
Tom explains: there is enormous diversity of these traits within the larger pattern.
 
"which some believe may be important ... for the survival of a society or culture as a whole."
 
"After some four hundred to five hundred years of growth in highly verbally oriented system of education and knowledge, we may be seeing the beginning of new phase in which ... certain kinds of complex information will be handled visually rather than verbally."
 
"Many of the problems of greatest importance in the modern world are ones of vast complexity,like understanding large-scale atmospheric or ecological systems.
 
These problems could be practiclly considered in depth only recently because only recently have we gained the ability to acquire,store,and process enormous amounts of data at high speed and comparatively modest cost."
 
"Some of these complex systems problems may be most successfully by certain gifted visual thinkers, using visually based analytic methods and employing increasingly sophisticated computer graphics technology..."
 
"Tere may be fundamental changes in attitude toward many of the skills that have long been focus of conventional education - rapid reading, reliable recall of detailed factual information,rapid and accurate calculation,neat writing,correct spelling and conventional verbal interpretaion of routine numerical data. As skills such as these gradually come to be done better and faster by machines,they may come to be seen as increasingly less important and less valuable."
 
"And finally, all this evidence suggests that the conventional education system may be focusing on the wrong kinds of skills and on rewarding some of the wrong kinds of learning.Conventional educational practices may be systematically weeding out many of those who might have the most to give..."
 
 

 
 
P L E A S E !!!
Dont forget to renew your membership subscription !
We rely entirely on members’ subscriptions to cover ADT office running costs. Your help is very much appreciated. If you pay income tax in the UK the Trust can claim back from the government R & C more than a quarter of your subscription (currently 28p for each £1 you give) so please if you can, sign below:-

GIFT AID
If you pay income tax in the UK the Arts Dyslexia Trust as a registered charity, under the UK Government’s Gift Aid Scheme can claim from HM Revenue and Customs a sum equal to the amount of tax you have paid on your subsription or other payments or donations to the Arts Dyslexia Trust. This involves no more than filling in the form below, signing it and returning it to the ADT’s address. Keep a copy for your own tax records.
 
 
 
adt@artsdyslexiatrust.org
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