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Just a quick (and interesting???) note. I updated my ABOUT page and thought I'd list it here in a blog as well... For I've also begun composing a series that shows "what I could see" when I experienced blindness. Thought you might find it interesting! (There is more to tell in this story too! My goodness, there is more to tell...) >>>> Jady went blind approximately 5 years ago. She only picked up a camera 4 years ago. She never knew she would "see" again. Even going through surgeries, she was not guaranteed this outcome. However, the surgeries did "save" her vision, mostly - and it was only then - after an intense and still joyful experience of being blind - that she picked up a camera. When she was blind, she experienced people in a new way. One, people treated her differently than she had previously experienced as a sighted person. People were actually more rude, mean-spirited and less helpful than when she was not-blind. If it were a social experiment, it would have been intensely interesting. People "stalked" her as a curiosity as they walked beside her navigating with her blind-cane. People tried to "heal her for being a sinner," on public transportation and in movie theaters, etc. People would ask why she was happy? Shouldn't she be depressed because she was blind? People cried and grabbed her in desperate "hugs." (Unsolicited hugging and touching.) People who had known her for years treated her suddenly as a stranger. People tried to trip her as she walked, thinking she could see only blackness. (Most blind people can see some things maybe just color and light. It is not total darkness to most. They simply cannot make out what it is they are seeing.) People would jam their arms in front of her trying to see if she would flinch, thinking she could not see anything. People were abusive and angry and would park on her cane, in their cars, while she was in a crosswalk. Women would look disgusted at her in trendy places, etc. The stories go on and on. But, Jady was strangely and bodaciously grateful while experiencing blindness. She decided early on to not choose fear and to experience whatever this experience had to offer. And she enjoyed it. And she noticed some freeing things in the process. Once she could "see again" after surgeries she recognized suddenly that other people could SEE her and she did not feel as free. Funny enough, she had walked around feeling much free-er as a non-sighted person than a sighted person. She also realized that the world looked flat and ugly compared to how she had envisioned the world in her mind while blind. AND THIS IS WHY SHE PICKED UP A CAMERA. She discovered that with a camera, she could make the world look as vibrant and interesting in her photos as things appeared in her mind. Thus, her obsession with photography began... Main Objective in Life: "To explore the secrets of becoming a wildly disciplined, fiercely tender, ironically sincere, scrupulously curious, aggressively sensitive, blasphemously reverent, lyrically logical, lustfully compassionate Master of Rowdy Bliss." --Rob Brezsny Guiding Question: "The secret of life," said sculptor Henry Moore to poet Donald Hall, "is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day, for your whole life. And the most important thing is-- it must be something you cannot possibly do." --For me, this is photography.-- e: jadybates@gmail.com Artist's Statement: Jady Bates is an internationally published photographer. She prefers working in black and white. Jady enjoys life, animals, people, and the world.  This is what it looked like as I tried to cross a street in the morning, going to work and taking public transportation with my "twig" guiding me.
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