Mondays with Mike: A bicycle and a sketch pad are powerful things  

Beth’s written here more than once about attempts – some successful some less so – to make visual art accessible to people who are blind or otherwise visually impaired. My take is that working too hard to translate visual phenomena into something Beth can understand in a way that we sighted people hope is some sort of equivalent—well, that’s fruitless. But, every piece of art tells some sort of story, and the creation of every piece of art is a story in itself. And so, perhaps ironically, efforts to make visual art more accessible in general – to tell those stories of creation – to everyone, sighted or unsighted, also work best for the visually impaired.

We’ve been lucky of late to encounter two visual artists who have wonderful stories to tell about their work. I ‘m going to introduce you to one of them—and his story—today. Beth will follow up with another story about another artist on Wednesday. Meantime, thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!

Our friend Steve Wierzbowski has a lot going for him. To start, he’s married to Lora Delestowicz- Wierzbowski (and you thought Knezovich was a mouthful), who’s an extreme White Sox fan and a talented artist in her own right. Steve’s a native Pittsburgher, which in my book buys him bonus points since my parents hailed from Western Pennsylvania and I like anyone who knows what yuns means. And he’s a talented architect who also does these wonderfully distinctive architectural sketches – or maybe he’s a talented visual artist who also happens to design buildings. Either way works.

Steve also loves to ride his bicycle—he lives in our building and I can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen him in his cargo shorts, helmet, and satchel—about to embark for a lakefront ride. What we didn’t know is that on many such trips, that backpack carried a sketchbook, and on his rides he’d stop to create some of those lovely drawings I mentioned.

Steve teamed up with a couple other artists – one works in video the other is a musician – and the three of them collaborated on a delightful and an enlightening video about Steve, his bicycle, and the creation of two drawings. I’d say more, but I can’t really do it justice – please use the embedded link below, or go straight to YouTube and give it a watch – you’ll love Two Sketches, I promise.