Linda Brant-Malm studied art at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She spent her 40-year career working in costume design, specializing in animals for mascots, amusement parks, festivals, and stage productions throughout the world. She loves the challenge of changing the human silhouette. Her furry costumes have been hugged by millions!
Linda is in the process of going blind from retinitis pigmentosa. Her guide dog helps her navigate. As she loses her vision, she is often reminded that those with blindness are frequently excluded from art. Her vision loss has driven her in a new direction as a designer. She creates tactile art and presents the pieces to small groups along with storytelling and a goal of bringing awareness to blindness.
More About the Artist
Linda graduated from Vision Loss Resources in Minneapolis, MN as well as Guiding Eyes for the Blind in Yorktown Heights, NY and MN Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities, Partners in Policymaking class 35. She has participated in clinical research studies for 25 years at Harvard Medical School, Berman-Gund Lab, as well as 7 years at University of Minnesota, Low Vision Lab.
Linda loves international travel. One of her favorite trips, was a photo safari in Tanzania, Africa. She can see through the lens of a camera better than she can with her own eyes. Miracles will never cease to amaze her!
Teaching Statement:
I am part of the pioneering movement to introduce tactile art to the world. Do you know what art feels like? Whether you are blind or sighted, here is your chance. Please touch, feel, caress, and handle!
I focus on people’s journey in dealing with loss, handling a diagnosis, facing fear, combatting isolation, adapting to change, finding hope and healing. The audience is empowered by interacting with art and storytelling of vision loss experiences. Through empathy and sharing, the audience engages in play, and helps them find insight into their lives as they become partially sighted or totally blind. We laugh and cry, which are important steps in our grieving process.
These advocacy and awareness of life without sight programs help you, your clients, their families, caregivers and other community members understand what it’s like to be blind through the use of tactile art and storytelling. Through touch, I demonstrate how art can be appreciated by all.
I encourage adapting-to-blindness training and learning coping skills. All of us become tenacious problem solvers. We learn from each other through storytelling as we grow in strength.
Program Offerings
Workshops
- HUNGRY LITTLE MONSTERS, A Story of Loss
Explore the process of going blind. The little monsters represent the scariness of losing one’s vision. At our interactive story time, we will stick whimsical, toy monsters on the model’s periphery as we imagine they are slowly nibbling away at our visual field. Through storytelling, we will rearrange the monsters in patterns representing other kinds of vision loss as we share our own experiences.
- I’M GOING WHAT?!? A Story of Diagnosis
Explore the process of going blind. At our interactive story time, we will discuss the never-ending set of circumstances that I faced on the day I got the diagnosis of going blind. Many people report feeling like they have turned to stone. It is hard to take it all in when we feel like that. The audience will pass around a rock cairn representing a person, and use handmade speech bubbles to fill a basket, representing the overwhelming thoughts and feelings that accompany a diagnosis.
- YIKES! A Story of Fear
Explore the process of going blind. At our interactive story time, we will discuss fear. Going blind is scary. Crossing a street can sometimes inflate my fears. It has become a recurring dream for me. Join me in play as we re-enact the wild and bizarre scenarios that take my power away leaving me in fear, using colorful toy tires and ladybug finger puppets. We will discuss coping skills for anxiety.
- I FEEL STUCK, A Story of Isolation
Explore the process of going blind. At our interactive story time, we will discuss how vision loss makes it hard to go places. We will play with toy cars and discuss how difficult it is not to be able to drive. Next a big whimsical, handmade goldfish too big for its bowl, will be passed around. We will jam it headfirst into its bowl. The fins stick out the top. The fish is stuck. We can easily feel stuck ourselves. It’s hard!
- SPINNIN’ DOORS, A Story of Adapting
Explore the process of going blind. At our interactive story time, we will explore a model a hallway. As doorways are touched, they spin unexpectedly. Blindness can be disorienting as we travel from room to room. We will each play with a pair of baby shoes to carefully plan our stepping patterns. The spinnin’ doors evoke the seriousness of learning how to adapt our walking skills to our vision loss.
- MY LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL, A Story of Hope
Explore the process of going blind. At our interactive story time, I will share my story of living with tunnel vision and my hopes for the future as I planned and prepared in anticipation of getting a guide dog. I am proud to say that I now have my own guide dog. He is my light at the end of the tunnel. Ah, independence regained! This presentation is focused on a highly textured piece of textile artwork that participants can use both sight and touch to experience.
- SPIRAL PATHS, A Story of Healing
Explore the process of going blind. Spirals have been found in art from cultures around the world. Often, they are considered paths of healing. At our interactive story time, we will discuss our own paths of healing as we touch and feel many clay shapes, each of which is an object that has a spiral incorporated into its stylized design. Many everyday objects and experiences can have meaning and help us along our own paths. This is a good exercise in mindfulness.
Residency
8. INCLUDING PEOPLE WITH BLINDNESS, Stories of Helping
After completing a series of all storytelling subjects accompanied by tactile art (workshops listed above), we will wrap up by discussing valuable lessons we have learned about blindness. Other innovators are finding ways to include people with blindness in experiencing art by allowing them to use their sense of touch. Museums are places that are starting to have touch tours with the use of white gloves along with a tour describer. 3-D printers are turning flat surfaces such as paintings into reliefs. Scale models made of bronze are being placed at historical architectural sites. Live theaters are providing pre-show sensory tours of the stage and audio described performances. There are so many possibilities for the future. Let’s try to think of ways where people with blindness can be included in activities they have long been denied.
“Linda makes talking about the loss of vision inviting and relatable. In watching people interact with her sculptures, it is evident that she has created pieces that provide a sense of healing through art.”
Susan Anderson, Associate Director of Programs, Vision Loss Resources
“Linda shares her passion for interactive art and tells her own personal story with vision loss along the way. It is wonderful to see how Linda connects with the group thereby allowing them to share their experience and ask questions freely.”
Sue Bauer, Community Service Specialist, Vision Loss Resources
“From the moment Linda entered my classroom with her guide dog, she captured the hearts of my fourth-grade students. It was a wonder to witness my students experience the feeling of losing their eyesight through interactive play with her tactile art. I recommend this artist’s storytelling program to any class teacher who wants their students to experience empathy and understanding of eyesight loss through art.”
Rosie Cole, Artist and Educator, City of Lakes Waldorf School
“Losing one’s vision is frightening and incredibly unsettling as there is no way to touch and feel the loss. It is an ambiguous sense or feeling of loss. By working with Linda’s tactual presentations one can feel and integrate in a new way of one’s vision loss.”
Kate Grathwold, Ph.D., President/CEO, Vision Loss Resources
“Linda is an artist, a storyteller, a teacher. As her presentation unfolds, you’ll also discover she has an empathetic ear and sharp sense of humor.”
Benj Vardigan, Writer, Editor, Communications Specialist at AmplifyDMC
