Making carved wooden panels with braille on them for Southmead Hospital in Bristol: an artwork for blind and partially-sighted people as well as those who have good vision. Part One - first steps in researching

I have to say that this project has been one of the most interesting that I've been lucky enough to be commissioned to do.

Ruth Sidgwick, arts organiser for the North Bristol NHS Trust, contacted me in April 2015. Some large plane trees were due to be removed from the grounds of the hospital at Southmead in Bristol and Ruth wondered if the wood could be used for a sculptural project to be permanently installed in the Brunel building there.

As part of the project, two day-long workshops, which I would oversee, would also take place at the hospital. During the 'Fresh Arts Festival', patients, staff and visitors to the hospital would get the chance to learn some carving skills and contribute to the final sculpture.

The artwork also needed to include or reference some words and phrases that had been selected by patients at the hospital, who were members of the writing and knitting groups, as being important to them.

Well, it didn't start off exactly as planned. Timber from a previously felled tree that had been stored at the hospital for the project had disappeared in the meantime!

While talking about what would be carved for the sculpture with Ruth, I looked at the other artworks that were already installed in the Brunel building. There were a lot of very interesting pieces but they were nearly all either flat paintings, behind glass or high up in the air. It occurred to me that there wasn't a lot for people who were blind or partially-sighted and that there must be quite a few such visitors and patients at the hospital.

So began the journey. As someone with pretty good vision, it was important to me that the sculpture shouldn't just be a gesture, but should really try and engage those with partial or no eyesight. Looking online for ideas didn't turn up much though. It seemed like there were no woodcarvings out there that were trying to do exactly what I wanted mine to. However, everyone seems to love the feel of wood and it seemed a great tactile material to use in this kind of project.

There were some restrictions on what could be done, as the hospital had strict guidelines to prevent potential sources of infection on the sculpture. It couldn't have any deeply carved cavities, for example. That also ruled out using textures such as fur.

First, I contacted the RNIB (the Royal National Institute of Blind People). Mark Croft, an advice worker there, sent a helpful list of organisations involved in making art more accessible to blind people. Helen Deevy, who works at one of them called The Art House,  passed on my contact details to a blind artist and sculptor in Wakefield named Alan Michael Rayner.

Alan has a lot of experience in producing his own woodcarvings and is a member of the West Riding Woodcarvers Association. He came up with many very interesting and useful suggestions for consideration. These included (amongst many others) using a thermo-formed plastic covering on the sculpture to prevent cross-contamination, methods of accessing audio descriptions that could be embedded into the sculpture and the pros and cons of using braille as part of the artwork. He also put me in touch with an organisation called Living Paintings.

Camilla Oldland at Living Paintings explained about the process of thermoforming plastic and we both felt it was probably impractical on a piece this size. She also pointed out that a large area can be difficult for a blind person to navigate around. Camilla suggested making a smaller 'orientation panel' to act as a guide to the larger one.

After talking with Ruth at the hospital, audio descriptions were also ruled out due to possible interference with medical equipment and procedures (as well as possible expense).

Thanks to the help of all these people, a design was starting to form in my mind. I sketched it out and sent it to the hospital for approval.

The next stage was to begin making the panels, but I didn't realise at this point that I was still to meet the Bristol Braillists...

Making carved wooden panels with braille on them for Southmead Hospital in Bristol: Part Two - Fresh Arts Festival and meeting the Bristol Braillists

After the initial process of research, my design for the wall-mounted sculpture in the Brunel building at Southmead hospital had been okayed and I now needed to assemble a panel to be carved at the Fresh Arts festival.

Since the timber originally earmarked for the project had vanished, I decided to buy some kiln-dried oak instead. Suitable locally grown wood wasn't available, so instead I did the next best thing and bought some that had been PEFC certified (indicating that it had come from sustainably and responsibly managed forests) from a local timber merchant.

The boards were joined and glued without using dowels or biscuits, as they can look awful if carved into by accident. Once the board had been sanded the design was drawn on and then it went with me in September 2015 to the Fresh Arts Festival.

Carving at 'Fresh Arts', with music provided by the 'Gasmen' choir. Photo by Ruth Sidgwick

The design was created to have plenty of straight lines and simple carving, so that passers-by could have a go and get stuck in with minimal carving experience. Several visitors and patients remarked to me that they found the carving process very relaxing and that it was 
a welcome activity at that time.

After the festival, I continued to carve the panel but was still undecided about using braille. Alan Michael Rayner had previously pointed out that there was more than one kind of braille and that, if I wished to use it, it was worth getting experienced advice.

One evening, sitting in the pub, I mentioned the project to my friend Steph. He reminded me that he was currently involved in a project to design a Kindle for blind people and then said that the group was meeting soon and that several braille users would be there. He invited me to join them. 

Perfect!

That was how I came to meet the Bristol Braillists, who provided a lot of helpful information and expertise during a very interesting evening indeed. It's very rare, I would imagine, that a sighted artist gets to sit with five blind people and to chat about how they interact with the world and how an artwork could be made more accessible for them.

One story from the evening stood out for me. I was told about a young woman, blind from birth, who was asked to draw a bus. She drew three straight lines. The first was the step, the second her route up the aisle of the bus and the third the pole that she held on to. The rest of the bus was irrelevant to her as she couldn't feel her way around it all.

I also found out that some blind people have a name for sighted people: 'light dependants'. Very true!

The braillists at the meeting came up with several good ideas and points. Hazel noted that someone who is blind may not have any reference for what is portrayed in a representational carving; a landscape has never been seen by some blind people. Dave thought that metal pins could be used to represent the braille dots - an idea that I later used. 

Later, when I had begun carving the main panel, Paul and Hazel Sullivan from the Braillists group very kindly came to my workshop and tried out the panel to check it for 'usability'. It was very interesting to hear their comments and Paul had typed out, on a braille typewriter, the wording that I wanted to use. This meant that I could drill straight through the dots on the printed card, so using it as a template.

I used brass jeweller's ball-head pins to make the braille dots, each snipped to length and then glued into an individually drilled and recessed hole - over 1600 pins!

Making carved wooden panels with braille on them for Southmead Hospital in Bristol: Part Three - the finished panels!

After nearly one hundred hours of work, the oak panels for Southmead hospital were ready to install. They were finished with Danish oil, for an attractive appearance together with some durability.

The main panel measures 61cm by 122 cm (2 feet by four feet). It shows figures writing, knitting and carving. They are deliberately vague, so can represent the patients who put forward their important words and phrases or anyone at the hospital seeing the sculpture.

The writing, knitting and carvings are spilling off the table and flowing off to become a landscape with fields, rivers and roads. Some of the fields have the phrases and words on them. To the top right are well-known buildings in Bristol with the sun breaking out from between clouds above as a hot air balloon floats by. I liked the idea of the words and phrases guiding across a landscape of memories and experience.

Along the top left of the panel, brass pins are set in to form an inscription in braille. There is no translation, so sighted people who cannot read braille must use the nearby key to read it.

The second panel is smaller, about 22cm by 30cm (8.6" by 11.8"). I took the advice of Camilla Oldland at Living Paintings, who had pointed out that blind people can get 'lost' feeling their way around a large panel without knowing where the boundaries of it are. This panel is an 'orientation panel'. Blind and partially sighted people can feel around the manageably-sized carving to find their way across the main panel. To help them, certain features are also named in braille. I think these names are like a poem on their own: fields, birds, trees, people, Bristol etc.

The third panel is about 21cm by 21 cm (8.27 inches square). It is a key to grade one (or uncontracted) braille, so that sighted people can translate the braille inscriptions. Grade one is the simplest form of braille used in the UK, being pretty much a direct translation letter-by-letter. There was some discussion with the Bristol Braillists about whether to use this or grade two, which uses contracted words so needs less room and is quicker to read. It was agreed that grade one was easier for non-users or braillists from other countries to get used to, so that was the one that I decided on.

I really wanted to include this panel as there are clearly a lot of people waiting around in the hospital with things on their minds. I hope that these sculptures will be an interesting puzzle for non-braillists, as well as introducing them to using this form of communication. That is why none of the other braille used is translated. Viewers must work out what it says.

At the beginning of March 2016, the panels were installed on the wall at the hospital. The Chief Executive of the North Bristol NHS Trust, Andrea Young, unveiled them on the 11th March.

One highlight of the day for me was being able to show Hazel and Paul the finished panels. We discussed that even though what the design shows may not be obvious to some users (think about it, no one who has been completely blind from birth knows what a landscape looks like), it can read as an abstract and still be enjoyed for the textures and the fact that braille users are directly engaged. It was great to chat to Paul about this, as he works for Bristol museum and art gallery making the displays there more accessible for other blind visitors.  In an interview with the Bristol Post newspaper, he said:

"There aren't many opportunities to feel artwork but this one invites it, which is brilliant. 
To have information in Braille and to find that I can read it is great.
I also like the idea that we can read this but most other people can't, when in 99 per cent of our lives it is the other way around."

Left - Right: Ruth Sidgwick (Arts Programme manager North Bristol NHS Trust), me, Andrea Young (Chief Executive North Bristol NHS Trust), Hazel, Paul. Photo by S. Cook

One thing that I find a bit of a shame is that I can't show the finished panels to some of the other people who gave me such helpful guidance. Obviously, emailing a photo isn't much use for some of them. I'd like to thank everyone here for their input on what has been one of the most interesting projects that I have worked on so far.

Teaching woodcarving for the NHS at 'Fresh Arts' festival 2015 in Southmead hospital

Recently, I've been working on a major new commission for 'Fresh Arts', the arts organisation for North Bristol National Health Service Trust. It is a relief carved oak panel to be installed in the main concourse at the new Southmead Hospital, which is now the main hospital serving Bristol and the surrounding area.

As part of the commission, I was asked to do some carving on the panel with passing patients, staff and visitors to the hospital at the 'Fresh Arts' festival, organised in association with Willis Newson. I have to say that I really enjoyed the two days there. Some patients even came down from the wards to have a go.

It's always really interesting to see what people think of carving when they haven't tried it before. I got a strong feeling that some of them got a lot from the experience and a few people spoke of how relaxing they found the process. 

I've often thought of the similarities between the repetitive motions of a carver using their tools confidently and someone who is using a mantra in meditation. Both involve a focus of attention on a repeated action towards a purpose that usually isn't immediately fulfilled. Carving can definitely (but not always!) be a relaxing activity in itself.

There were a group of Japanese artists and designers also participating in the festival, including Architecture students from Tsukuba university.

I'm fascinated by the Japanese approach to art and craft and the sense of aesthetics there. One day, it would be great to have the opportunity to show my own carvings in Japan, particularly the 'Mechanical Insects' series. For now, I really enjoyed seeing the group producing their work. 

There were several other artists, poets and creative people also working in the festival, including Sue Mayfield's writing workshops and Guy Begbie doing bookbinding next to me. It was great to chat with them and everyone else. There were also choirs of singers entertaining everyone.

The panel is now back in my workshop, where I'll be working on it for the next couple of months.

I plan to make it interesting for blind and partially-sighted people as much as for sighted people like myself. To research this, I've been in touch with a blind artist and carver called Alan Michael Rayner, who is based in Wakefield, as well as the RNIB and arts organisations such as Arthouse and LivingPaintings, who work with blind people. They have all been very helpful and generous with their time and knowledge. I'll let you know how it develops!