On Art and Life – Common Touch: The Art of the Senses in the History of the Blind

On Art and Life

Ann Millett-Gallant, Lecturer, Arts and Humanities, UNC-Greensboro

Book cover for Ann Millett Gallant, The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art (2010).

I am a congenitally, physically disabled woman, a visual artist, and an art historian. All of these aspects of my identity contribute to my research on representations of the disabled body in art and visual culture and the work of contemporary disabled artists. My first book, The Disabled Body in Contemporary Art (New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2010), focused primarily on photography and performance art. I placed the work of disabled artists in dialogue with that of non-disabled artists and with the history of western art. In the process of writing this book, I became very interested in and later directly involved with the work of photographer Joel-Peter Witkin. In 2007, I posed for one of Witkin’s lavishly detailed, historically and mythologically rich compositions, Retablo, New Mexico, 2007. I later sketched and painted myself using the photographs that served as models for this work. I had always been interested in figurative imagery in my own drawing and painting, and as my scholarship developed, so did my practice in representing my own disabled body.

Joel Peter Witkin, Retablo, New Mexico, 2007. Black and white photograph.

Picture depicts a composition inspired by folk-art devotional paintings known as retablo. Picture shows two nude female models, painted white to resemble sculpture, and staged on a pedestal covered in flowing drapery. To the viewer’s left stands a woman, her light colored hair pulled back into a low bun, her shoulders slightly pulled back and her arms stretched out from her sides. Her right leg is bent back and up toward her buttocks. She holds an upright sword in her right hand. She gazes down, to the viewer’s right, at a seated nude female figure with shortened arms and legs. Her back is to the viewer. Her dark wavy hair is pulled back into a low bun, and her left arm reaches to the standing figure. Her right arm rests on a small table covered with a white cloth. A vase of flowers adorns the table. The figures are in front of an elaborate backdrop. In the far left is a large nude photograph of the forward standing model. In the photo, she is standing with her left arm curved above her head and her right arm bowed down past her waist. Her right hand touches her inner left thigh. In the far right, next to the photograph, is a painted, shadowed, and winged form looking at a hand of salvation. A skeleton model lounges on the far left side of the scene. He is partially covered in drapery. He looks toward the women. The flooring extending from the front to the back of the scene is decorated with fleur-de-lis like details. Three lines of writing – the Retablo prayer – adorn the lower edge of the photograph on an attached yellow strip of paper. [end of description]

In 2007, I had an accident that caused me to have traumatic brain injury, resulting in memory loss, increased anxiety, muscle dysfunction, and the limited use of prosthetic legs. I explored my personal experiences with congenital impairments, as well as those caused by the accident, in my artwork and writing. I eventually self-published a memoir that explored these issues and my experiences with art therapy, as I continued to cope with the life changes brought about by the accident.

Book cover for Ann Millett-Gallant, Re-membering: Putting Mind and Body Back Together Following Traumatic Brain Injury (2014).

Picture shows the violet-hued illustrated book cover. In the center is the page of an open scrapbook covered in drawings on paper, photographs, cards, and pages of writings. At the top of the cover is the text: Re-Membering: Putting Mind and Body Back Together Following Traumatic Brain Injury. At the bottom of the cover is the text: Ann Millett-Gallant. [end of description]

Ann Millett-Gallant, Self Portrait Sketch, 2007. Ink drawing.

Picture depicts a nude figure study of the back of a woman with shortened legs and arms drawn in red ink on white paper. The figure is upright. She looks to the viewer’s left. Her hair is swept away from her face and in a low ponytail. Her arms, shortened to near below the elbows, are extended out from her body. Her left leg is shortened to just below her buttocks. Her right leg is shortened to just below her knee. [end of description]

Ann Millett-Gallant, Ann’s Hands, 2007. Color painting.

Picture shows a close-up of the tips of Millett-Gallant’s shortened arms – her hands – holding a brown paint brush. Her arms are pink with red overtones. In the right, the paint brush lies vertically down Millet-Gallant’s right, rounded-tipped hand, angled slightly left. Her left hand resembling a closed fist rests perpendicular to the brush and her right hand. Her two touching hands form an inverted V-shape. In the upper left corner is a half of a brown egg-shaped object. It is situated above the tip of the paint brush. The background is green with blue shading enclosing Millett-Gallant’s hands. [end of description]

Colleagues considered my first book a significant contribution to disability studies, for art history has not contributed to the field as much as have other areas of the humanities. I have continued to create new opportunities for such dialogues, by chairing panels of interdisciplinary research at disability studies and art history conferences. In 2014, I co-edited, with art historian Elizabeth Howie, a special issue of The Review of Disability Studies, which included interdisciplinary essays on disability and visual culture, primarily visual art. Currently, Dr. Howie and I are continuing this work as we co-edit a forthcoming book of such essays, Disability and Art History, which will be published by Ashgate Publishing in 2016. The book will include one of my essays in which I analyze artist Susan Harbage-Page’s photographs of her developmentally disabled nephew, Peter. In addition to this essay, I have begun to place additional forms of visual culture at the center of my research, especially film and television.

Susan Harbage-Page, Peter with Catwoman Doll, 1992. Black and white photograph.

Picture shows a lanky older boy from his upper legs up. He stands, his arms posed, and looking directly at the viewer. His hair is combed severely back from his face. His body is slightly angled away from the viewer. The left part of his face is partly in shadow. His left arm is bent at the elbow and his left hand rests on his hip. His right arm lies close to his body. It is bent at the elbow at a right angle to his body. His right hand is extended and he holds a Catwoman doll in a similar pose to himself. He wears a dark-colored turtleneck, with the sleeves slightly pushed up, and black pants. [end of description]

I have been teaching full time at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro since 2008. I teach all online courses for the Department of Art and for the Bachelor of Liberal Studies Program. The BLS Program offers an all online Bachelors Degree in Liberal Studies, for which I teach interdisciplinary courses on photography, the representation of women in visual culture, and the intersections between art and everyday life. And I am still painting! In addition to images of my body, I specialize in pet portraits, still lifes, and images of single flowers, many of which I have assembled in an installation mural in my living room. I find art-making enjoyable, therapeutic, and thought-provoking, as it engages me in new ways with the kind of practices and imagery I analyze in my scholarly work.

Ann Millett-Gallant, Still Life with Helmet, 2013. Color painting