{"id":18682,"date":"2026-01-29T20:54:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T20:54:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/artsmidwest.org\/?p=18682"},"modified":"2026-03-24T02:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T02:57:11","slug":"clovernook-ohio-braille-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artsmidwest.org\/stories\/clovernook-ohio-braille-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Ohio’s Prolific Braille Producer is Making Art More Accessible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you\u2019ve ever interacted with Braille<\/a>, odds are the touchable code system under your fingertips was made in Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired<\/a> is the world\u2019s largest producer of Braille by volume. For over 120 years, it has printed Braille books for the Library of Congress, magazines, menus, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For nearly a decade now, Clovernook has also worked to make the art world more accessible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Samual Foulkes is Clovernook\u2019s director of Braille production and accessible innovation. He says the nonprofit has worked with hundreds of art spaces across the U.S., from the Met and Carnegie Hall to local Cincinnati museums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an interagency group of mostly people who are blind or low vision. We work with museums to prioritize what should be made accessible, and then we produce those things,\u201d Foulkes says.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\n Sam Foulkes, right, says talking with folks with disabilities is a good first step in making art spaces more accessible: “Once you do that, you start to see that community coming to your space.”\n <\/span>\n <\/figcaption>\n \n \n <\/figure>\n\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

With grant funding, the team brings Braille, audio and touch tours, tactile graphics, 3D scans, and 3D printing into art spaces. That includes touchable replicas of opera performers or Braille stage programs. And in museums, goodbye to visual-only, 2D art behind glass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt seems to me that it\u2019s often been a privilege and not a right for someone to be able to enjoy culture. And so for as long as museums have existed, they\u2019ve traditionally been very exclusionary of people with disabilities,\u201d Foulkes says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brian Anderson is Clovernook\u2019s arts and advocacy content creator. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He helps audit museums\u2019 accessibility for blind and low vision visitors and conducts patron surveys on new interactive art.<\/p>\n\n\n

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“We all are artists in our own way. Everyone experiences things in a different way, even someone who may be sighted . . . And so I feel like as many ways as you can be diverse in how you offer art, or how you present art, I think that it provides a different perspective for someone to be able to experience it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n BRIAN ANDERSON, CLOVERNOOK CENTER FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED<\/cite>\n <\/blockquote>\n\n