TRACY CARCIONE, BLIND MUSEUM VISITOR

NARRATOR: Tracy Carcione has been blind since she was two years old. As a child she was frustrated at the lack of access during class trips to museums. She grew up thinking there was nothing for blind people at art museums. Today, art and art museum visits are becoming an important part of her life.

TRACY: Well, I think that a lot of people figure that blind guys couldn't possibly understand art. They say, it's such a visual thing, what could a blind person get out of it. Or why would we even care. But I read a lot, I've read about guys like Picasso and Gaugan and Van Gogh, and I've read about amphora and Greek temples and all those things. And it interests me, and it's great to able to see what those things actually are, which is sometimes different than what I imagined. And some things like the Picasso picture I was looking at earlier, I couldn't even have imagined it. It wouldn't have come through without a drawing to go with the words that were there.

It's like I said. I never thought that I could learn much about art, that somebody could make a painting so that it would mean something to me. But now I see that I can and I want to learn more about it. It's very interesting. You know, I never thought that I could understand these Surrealist painters and things like that. Or even the not-Surrealists, people like, well maybe they have a picture in here of the Mona Lisa, which I've always heard about but I've never seen (laugh). It's very interesting, so to me the thing opens up a whole new fascinating area of study.