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In the old days, we used to talk about accessibility as something we added to our websites. Today, the conversation has shifted towards making our websites accessible as a key requirement of the development process- for complex reasons and with complex benefits. From providing accessible content for people with disabilities, to creating fully usable functionality, to support for multiple languages, we want to hear what’s going on in the innovative world of accessibility!
Please share your ideas about making web and mobile efforts accessible to a wide range of users, as part of this month’s Net2 Think Tank!
Thanks to Dr. Md Mahfuz Ashraf for suggesting this month's Net2 Think Tank topic!
How can we build a culture of accessibility? For instance: What are you doing to encourage accessibility for your own online or mobile-based presence? And, what online networks are supporting people with disabilities and what efforts are being made to make the web more accessible overall? Share your thoughts with the NetSquared Community!
Deadline: Saturday, July 23rd
Be sure to get your submission in by emailing Claire the link to your post by Saturday, July 23rd.
The roundup of contributions will be posted on the NetSquared blog on Monday, July 25th.
Net2 Think Tank is a monthly blogging/social networking event open to anyone and is a great way to participate in an exchange of ideas. We post a question or topic to the NetSquared community and participants submit responses either on their own blogs, the NetSquared Community Blog, or using social media. Tag your post with "net2thinktank" and email a link to us to be included. At the end of the month, the entries get pulled together in the Net2 Think Tank Round-Up.
The digital divide includes the tech design divide that keeps people who are using assistive technology or who have disabilities from being able to use web sites, software and other tech tools. But making your web site and other online services more accessible isn't just a nice thing to do: it makes a web site more accessible for potential customers, clients and donors, and demonstrates an organization's commitment to usability and accessibility to everyone. In addition, for a designer or programmer, knowing how to make a web site fully accessible makes you more competitive in the job market.
Some of the best artists deal with disabilities in their everyday lives that the rest of us can’t even imagine living with, and use art to communicate with the world. The results are often stunning.
We’ve collected biographies and sample pieces from outstanding disabled artists, both famous and lesser-known.
The artists below paint with their hands, their mouths and their feet.
Many are blind or suffer from mental disabilities, yet they produce some of the most beautiful and intricate artwork that you can imagine.
Their achievements are arguably epic in the face of the adversity that they face.
We hope that the artists in this post inspire your designs and make you look at adversity in any field as a surmountable obstacle.
Disability: Autistic Savant
Wiltshire was born in 1974 in London to West Indian parents. He is an autistic savant and world famous architectural artist. He learned to speak at the age of nine, and at the age of ten began drawing detailed sketches of London landmarks. While he has created many prodigious works of art, his most recent was a eighteen foot wide panoramic landscape of the skyline of New York City, after only viewing it once during a twenty minute helicopter ride.
Disability: Autistic
Maria Iliou is a Greek artist with autism spectrum disorder. She lives in Long Island, New York, and is an advocate for the rights of people with autism.
Disability: Bipolar
Cartin is from Brooklyn and actively lives with bipolar disorder. He has been active in the Mental Health Consumer Movement since 1990 and considers himself a “psychiatric survivor”. He has won numerous art competitions and does corporate design work in addition to his art.
Disability: Missing Both Arms
Peter is a foot painter. He creates all of his artwork using just his feet, having no arms. Peter’s disability stemmed from the drug thalidomide, which was prescribed for morning sickness until it was discovered that it caused deformities fetuses. After living most of his life without arms, Peter considers his right foot to be like the right hand of most people, using it dexterously to open doors and perform many other everyday tasks.
Disability: Lupus
Willow grew up in Saudi Arabia and Panama, where her father was a pilot on sea vessels. Her early introduction to varying cultures made her a huge fan of tribal art. Later in life she was struck with lupus, and started drawing when it went into remission.
Disability: Diminished capacity through multiple strokes
Although Alice Schonfeld is most known for her sculpting work primarily in Italian marble, she is also regarded as an inspirational figure for the disabled community. She has shown a considerable tenacity to work through debilitating illnesses and has done a lot to promote awareness of disable artists. She resides in California.
Disability: Visually Impaired
Keith is a blind fine artist and avid mountain climber. He has climbed over a hundred Munros (a type of Scottish mountain), one of which can be seen in the first painting below. In 2009 he won the Jolomo award for Scottish landscape painting.
Disability: Visually Impaired
Lisa not only learned to paint after losing her sight, she wrote a book about it. Her inspiring use of color and her ability to tell which color she is using just by feeling the texture of the paint are just two remarkable facets of her story.
Disability: Missing a hand
Just six years after losing his hand as a child in an accident in which a crashed plane severed his arm and took away his dominant hand, Sesow played for the US team in the disabled Olympics in England. While working at IBM as a software engineer, he began painting scenes in oils that were influenced by his traumatic injury.
Disability: Quadriplegic
Michael Monaco is a quadriplegic who paints with his mouth. His work has been featured in global exhibitions and he is a member of the Mouth and Foot Painters Association.
Disability: No lower arms or right foot
Simon has no lower arms or right foot. In addition to his still paintings, he teaches digital photography and writes poetry and prose. He is also a web designer.
Disability: Paralysis
Francesconi is a mouth painter that excels at adding a high level of detail in his works, especially considering his method of painting them. He has participated in over 75 exhibitions around the world.
Disability: Loss of arm use through polio
The first President of the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists of the World, Stegmann lost the use of both arms and hands from polio at the age of two. A prominent mouth painter, he formed the association around 1953 and was voted president for life. The association continues to be home to hundreds of Mouth and Foot painters globally.
Richard Wawro was a prominent and prolific autistic savant artist from the United Kingdom. He began drawing at the age of three, and immediately covered the chalkboard with a number of detailed images.
Disability: Autism
Jessica Park is an autistic artist from Massachusetts. She starts with a sketch of the scene and may refer back to a photograph for more detail later. Her mother wrote a memoir about Jessy’s story.
Disability: Autistic Savant
Ping Lian is an autistic savant who has been producing amazing art since his childhood. He is now fifteen. More of his amazing art may be viewed at his website.
Disability: Autistic Savant
This French autistic savant artist was born in Iran. He is unable to speak, walk or feed himself, but he produces paintings of flowing, beautiful figures. His art has been exhibited globally.
Disability: Autistic Savant
Widener is a famous autistic savant artist whose works are exhibited in museums and galleries nationwide. He not only creates intricate works of art; he is also able to make complex calculations in an instant.
Disability: Autistic Savant
The city of Urville exists solely in the mind of this French autistic savant artist. His elaborate sketches of the city are executed in intricate detail. He has published a book with over 300 detailed sketches of his fabled city.
Disability: Asperger’s Syndrome
LaMunyon is a talented child artist that began painting when she was only seven. She is now twelve. In kindergarten, instead of cutting out letters to illustrate her alphabet, she drew her own.
Compiled exclusively for WDD by Angela West.
Do you have a favorite artist who is living with a disability? Please include a link to their works in our comment section.
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