At the 2024 American Printing House for the Blind (APH) annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky, MDE-LIO staff had an opportunity to meet artists who contributed to this year’s APH’s Insights Art competition. We talked with Michigan artist Carol Farnsworth, who graciously decided to donate her piece to Camp Tuhsmeheta. Learn more about Farnsworth, the piece she donated, and her creative process below.
Thank you for donating that beautiful piece. We are so excited about it! When and how did you first become interested in art?
I became interested in art with a friend's mother. She was an art teacher at a Lutheran school. We did all sorts of things with macrame and things we found in nature. And clay; I made a whole nativity scene with little pieces of clay. But anyway, that's where it started. And I've always liked art. I took art in high school. I do felted art, which is knitting and shrinking it, like you would shrink a lovely sweater that you loved, but this time I do it on purpose.
It's usually animals, because it's a lot easier for people to smile at an animal than it is a person in distress. I was doing a bit of disabled proactiveness. My first one was called “Chicken Run,” and that's now in the museum at the American Printing House. It's a little chicken running away, and it has artificial legs. It's running away from the nest and its mom. They're all different animals though, and last year I decided to do guide dogs. I had guide dogs at rest, four little guide dogs in their harness.
I was at loose ends to figure out what I was going to do for this year. Then our [mountain ash] tree came down, and I said, “Well, I’ll use that for something. I like owls. I haven't made owls. We'll do that.”
You mentioned APH. How many works of yours have been displayed at the APH Insights Art exhibition?
I've had nine, and I'm currently looking to see if I can get in at the Forest Hill Fine Arts Center. They do a display. I've been over at Meijer, and I've showed them some of my work. So sometime I may actually get in at the Meijer sculpture garden.
When you are entering your artwork into something like APH Insights, do you try to create something specifically for that? Or do you create multiple pieces and then choose which one you want to put in the APH exhibit?
No, I usually think about what I want to do and then I work on that particular piece. I have a friend that does a whole series and then she picks what she likes. But I like to do one by one.
What is the title of this piece that you're donating to us?
“Dinner Time,” because the mom [owl] is bringing back the mouse for the little ones in the nest.
Can you describe this artwork and include the use of the various mediums you used?
If you look at the artwork, it is about 24 inches tall without the mom, and it is 12 inches wide. It is rounded like it is part of a tree, and it was a mountain ash tree. The outside is mountain ash bark. On the top is a stick with the mother owl sitting like she's coming to light on the top of the tree, and she is holding a mouse in her talons. In the side of the tree there is a hole, and it has two smaller owls in it waiting for their mom to come back. It has a stand on the top where the mom can come and land. And it has a piece inside so the little ones can sit and look out the hole.
What was your inspiration for this piece?
I have an uncle who sent me a picture. He's in the Audubon Society, and he sent me a picture of three baby owls in a tree. I always remembered that. When I thought about having to do something with felting, I wanted something a little more than three owls. Frankly, you can't get three baby owls in a tree unless it's about two feet around, so I did two babies with the mom.
Is there anything else you'd like us to know about you or your art?
This year, I am probably not going to be at Insights. I'm doing a program with another artist from Pennsylvania, and she is also an artist who went blind maybe 17 years ago. She and I are exchanging a piece of art six days a week through the post office on a postcard. Since we're also writers, we write a small poem about our day, and it goes out in the mail. We're hoping eventually to be able to put those into books.
Any final words of wisdom to share?
You don't have to have vision to do art. It's from your head and your heart, not from your eyes.