BLIND ARTIST DESIGNS INCREDIBLE MURAL CELEBRATING THE POWER OF MUSIC
Harmony in music is the process of fusing various sounds to produce a fresh, lovely sound. For one of his most recent works, a mural he painted in downtown Garland, Texas, artist John Bramblitt took inspiration from this poignant idea. This street art not only conveys a positive message about a flourishing community but also showcases the artistry and perseverance of Bramblitt, who is blind.
Bramblitt tells My Modern Met, "Garland is a cultural melting pot with quite a diversity when it comes to people coming from different places and different communities coming together." "Music seemed like the ideal choice for a mural I wanted to create that honoured all of this," the artist said. Even though music transcends languages and cultural boundaries, it can be incredibly personal to individuals and cultures. When you start tapping your foot to the beat, people start moving to the same beats.
Bramblitt's epilepsy and Lyme disease complications caused him to lose the majority of his vision in 2001. After a while, he became interested in painting and learned to differentiate between various paint colours by feeling their textures with his fingers. The artist claims that she became the first blind person to create a mural in 2017. Since then, she has improved her methods and completed murals in Korea, Texas, and New York.
Even though he developed this method in his studio, there were times when working on a large-scale mural required some updating, particularly to prevent weather damage over time. He says, "I can use any textures I want and be as extreme as I want to be when I'm working on a painting in my gallery." He primed the wall this time using a very smooth paint. "After that, I mix the black paint I use so that when I touch it, it feels different from the other paint and has a slightly rough, almost tacky feel to it," he says. This enables me to align myself with the wall and sketch with black paint.
To have a complete blueprint of where everything will be, he also paints the canvas first.
The woman at the centre of the mural appears to be absorbing the music that is playing all around her. Two musicians are to her right, and dancers who are keeping time with the beat are to her left. According to the artist, "the characters were intended to symbolize everyone coming together and harmonizing with one another." "The Braille letters that spell out "Harmony" are located on the right side of the mural. The mural aims to depict not just the harmony found in music but also the harmony that arises from people coming together to share and create with each other.
According to Bramblitt, the fact that this mural is situated in an area with a high population density is one of its most amazing features. "The majority of my work consists of paintings that I commission for people who own businesses or homes; it is only ever seen by those who enter the building," he says. "A mural is for the community, particularly one like this one where families and individuals congregate to celebrate, meet, and have good times. It is my wish that it will make people smile or at least lift their spirits whenever they see it.