Podcast Ep210 John Bramblitt
Didrik Johnck: [00:00:00] Welcome. Welcome to the No Barriers Podcast, hosted by Erik Weihenmayer. He's got a lot in common with our guest today, John Bramblett. Both are blind, both are trailblazing adventurers, one summited Everest. The others become a world recognized painter. Whether you're facing a giant mountain or a blank canvas, it's not magic, it's sweat, perseverance and innovation.
You'll fail a lot. John's failures and the innovation that resulted from those led to the creation of a unique way of painting. What if you could feel color? John does. His artistic and accurate renderings of people with vivid colors and textures is remarkable. He paints both small and large, including murals that sweep across buildings, and one of his works was even wrapped onto the entirety of a Boeing 7 37.
Curious how you paint without sight. Or how John turned visions of [00:01:00] the world into incredible works of art. Stay tuned and you'll learn how. I'm producer Didrik Johnck, and this is The No Barriers podcast.
Erik Weihenmayer: It's easy to talk about the successes, but what doesn't get talked about enough is the struggle. My name is Erik Weihenmayer. I've gotten the chance to ascend Mount ever. To climb the tallest mountain in every continent to kayak the Grand Canyon, and I happen to be blind. It's been a struggle to live what I call a no barriers life, to define it, to push the parameters of what it means.
And part of the equation is diving into the learning process and trying to illuminate the universal elements that exist along the way. In that unexplored terrain between those dark places we find ourselves in and the summit exists a map. That map that way forward is what we call no [00:02:00] barriers.
Hey everyone, this is Erik Weihenmayer. Welcome to the No Barriers Podcast. Oh man, I got my good friend John Bramblitt with us today. Hey, John.
John Bramblitt: Hey, Erik, I'm, I am so happy to be here. This is, this is gonna be so much fun.
Erik Weihenmayer: I'm so happy to, uh, hear your voice. I'm not gonna say see you and you're not gonna say See me. We'll just say, good to hear our voices. Right.
John Bramblitt: That, that sounds good.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. And, uh, You had a good Thanksgiving over there in Dallas.
Speaker 4: We did. We did. It was just family and friends and, um, um, yeah, it was really nice, really warm, really special. How about you?
Erik Weihenmayer: Uh, I had a great time, uh, invited a bunch of friends over and had a party.
Now you have a, uh, like this bar or something, or like this art place that you, that's attached to your house, right? Where you have all your all your friends come and hang out, right?
John Bramblitt: Yeah. You know, well it, it isn't, it [00:03:00] isn't attached to my house. It's um, it's in downtown Denton, but, but yeah, it's a gallery.
Erik Weihenmayer: It's like your clubhouse.
John Bramblitt: Exactly. I wanted a gallery or an art, art making space. But you know, a lot of those places they go outta business 'cause like they have to sell the art. And, um, and I didn't want the art to be the commodity. I wanted a place, so I heard in LA and New York, there's these places called art bars where you let the drinks and we, we have a full coffee espresso bar. Teas, like really nice teas. We do, we, we have cocktails, all that stuff, but we let the drinks pay for the art space. So we have musicians come in, we have poets. Tonight is a poetry night. It is just, come on. So it's a space for artists to just come and be themselves and not be judged too harshly or anything.
Erik Weihenmayer: , What a great venue. I'd love to come and hang with you guys at some point.
John Bramblitt: Yeah. Oh man. I would love that. My, my guide dog is a yellow lab, so we just call it the yellow dog. Everybody likes, likes my guide dog more than they like me. So we just named, we named the place after him.
Erik Weihenmayer: Hey, join the club.
Yeah, they're way [00:04:00] cuter. Hopefully though they're, uh, our breath is better. Um, yes, yes. There we go. Than the, than the puppies. Hey, so you and I were hanging in, uh, Cognac France, uh, just several months ago together. I'll tell everybody that uh, John has taken part in several no barriers experiences, but maybe the very coolest one was with Hennessy Cognac.
Right. So tell us about that experience, why you came and, and what, what your involvement was and what you did for the company.
John Bramblitt: Oh, man, I, I, that, that was such a blast and it was such a, it was such a thrill, really, really to work with you again and to work with, with Hennessy and what, and what they're goal and their mission was where they're, they wanted to do, to put artwork on the, on a label, on a special bottle of, of a cognac that they were making.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. They make super highend cognac.
John Bramblitt: Oh my goodness. They, it's, um, it's, it's brilliant. And, but the, and, but the whole like, I don't know, I, I guess a philosophy behind the co the company I just found so [00:05:00] refreshing where. They're very inclusive and they're very like pushing, it seems like health and and wellbeing of, of their employees and everybody around them.
And, and on this label, they, they wanted to support like the, um, the philosophy behind No Barriers. And so I did a painting for them of, of a, like a rope team, going up a mountain. They're working together and so they wanted this on the, on the label, but they also wanted to put braille on the label, which is extremely unusual.
And extremely hard to do. But they took that challenge on. They did it, which was amazing.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. They have this thing called savoir-faire, which is like all about their tradition going back hundreds and hundreds of years of how they make the cognac. But yet at the same time, they wanted to be innovative, right?
And they wanted to build this bottle that speaks to No Barriers. And you provided this beautiful artwork, and as you said, the label of the bottle is in braille, which is so innovative and so forward thinking, right?
John Bramblitt: Yeah. And that's hard to do. It's hard, it's hard [00:06:00] to, to, to get that braille on, on, on something like that.
I don't know if they realized how hard it was gonna be when they started, but they stuck with it and they, and they got it done.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. Well, it's absolutely beautiful and maybe we can include Didrik some like the photos and the, and the notes and stuff so people can go and check it out. Because I mean, from what I understand, it's just stunning.
Didrik Johnck: Oh man. It was, it was so much fun. One of the, one of my favorite things that I, I did with you there was we did a workshop. I do, I do painting workshops where we blindfold people and we showed them how to paint without eyesight. And Erik, and, and the whole team was there, and I think we blindfolded at at least 300 people there.
And I don't speak French. And, and, and of course they're blindfolded and we're all laughing. We're just having this great time. And it was so great to share that, you know, 'cause I think actually getting your hands on art and learning how to do some techniques without sight, it, it, it really pushes a person's understanding of what, what a person with a disability can do. What a person with a site [00:07:00] limitation can do. And, and, and you don't even need to speak the same language to be able to communicate that. It was just, it was a blast.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, art is a communication form, right? And you don't think about it always in that way.
You and I met at a blind painting workshop. You came out to No Barriers and led that experience and, um, the way you make painting accessible for people. I know you've been asked this a million times, but it's, it's a fascinating piece of the innovation that you've created. You make textures in the different colors, right?
Maybe like a color might have bird seeded in it or might be thicker than another paint, right? You create that ahead of time so people can, can experience the different ways to actually feel colors, right?
John Bramblitt: Yeah. A hundred, a hundred percent. I, um, the way, the way that I paint is basically the same sort of. If you're visually impaired, you use orientation and mo and mobility skills. It's where you learn how to use a white cane. Yeah. So buying these sort of spatial reasonings that the, the sort of techniques [00:08:00] that a visually impaired person will use to be able to cross the city. Yeah. And so, so when I draw with lines, I can have tactile lines that I draw that are raised where you can touch them the same way that you would trail a wall or you would fill a table and you know exactly where it is in your room.
And then with paint. I'll brow in my paint bottle so I know what color I'm starting with. But then I'll mix different additives, different mediums, um, into the paint so that I can make like white fill, let's say like toothpaste, really thick, really creamy. Then I can make black fill little runny, almost like, almost like oil.
The additives that I use in my studio are different than I use in my workshop. Like in the studio there, there are these chemical additives that are made for paint,
Erik Weihenmayer: Right? Don't eat 'em.
John Bramblitt: I usually use stuff like bird seed and flour because. Just in case anybody gets some in their mouth, you know?
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. You know?
John Bramblitt: Totally. I don't wanna poison anybody. I mean, it's supposed to be non-toxic, but I don't wanna, I don't wanna take that risk on a paper workshop.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. You know, I mean, that'd be the ultimate sacrifice for [00:09:00] art. Um, and now I've, I heard in one of your podcasts, you talking about, um, haptic visualization. Now, what's that?
Is that connected to what you just mentioned?
John Bramblitt: Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's really, it's just a way of understanding the world through touch instead of using your eyes. So, and everybody kinda uses it, so it's just, um, like my son, he plays all kinds of video games and he has these controllers that have buttons all over the thing.
But he can touch the controller. He knows exactly where the buttons are. He doesn't have to look down at his hands, right. So he can feel the controller and he can visualize where, where things are. Or when somebody's driving and they're, you know, they're reaching for the radio or the shifter or whatever it is, they, they can visualize where things are or where their, where their coffee is, maybe in the, in the cup holder.
So people, we, we use this all the time and for me, like if I am feeling something as an non-visual person, I'm using my, my sense of touch to visualize the world world. So basically just using your, your hands to do the work that your eyes would normally do. And with visual arts, you do that [00:10:00] a lot.
It's like anything else you can train yourself to become better at it. The more you do it, the better you get, the more adept you get at it. So, when I was sighted, I could draw, um, a portrait, I could draw the blueprints for a house.
Then when I really lost my eyesight, the amount that I could understand through touch was much simpler. My brain still knew how to draw, but. I would draw a tactile line and I would make a tactile square, you know, out of those lines.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: So that was about all that I could feel and touch and hold in my mind.
But over time of doing that, you're able to do more and more and more. So to make a long story short is it's really, it's to be able to understand through touch, and it's something that you start out with kind of slow a little bit. It's baby steps, but you just keep adding to it. Yeah. But you can see in your art form.
Like, I have a lot of friends that can play guitar, and when they first start, they're staring at their hands when they're trying to make the chords. But then over time, um, you know, they're not even looking at their hands. Like their, their hands are able feel the, the, the frets and know [00:11:00] exactly what they're doing.
Or a keyboardist, you know, it's, um, so yeah, it's just, you know, it sounds weird, but people realize that they do it all the time.
Erik Weihenmayer: Somewhere in my notes here, I have, you know, this idea that, like, even as a blind guy, um, I think like what you do is like magic.
I, uh, went to an event the other day and there was a mentalist who was guessing like. You know, the serial code on, dollar bills. , I was thinking like, you, you're, you're a magician. And then as you talk, what you're saying is, no, I'm not a magician. I spent hours and hours and hours figuring out new techniques of being able to map a painting and be able to construct something.
So it's, it's not magic. Even though it looks like it from the outside.
John Bramblitt: Well, thank you. Thank you. I, I spent 25 years to be an overnight success in paint. Nice. But the cool thing is that it's not magic at all and it's free. Like it's just techniques. Yeah. Like in 2017, [00:12:00] 2018, um, I became a cultural ambassador for the us Yeah.
But then to Brazil. And a big reason was because talk about art, but also to teach these painting techniques because. There's not a whole lot of money, especially at that time in Brazil, like for, to be able to teach people with without vision. And the more that you paint like this, the easier it is for you to get around.
And it's something that anybody can learn, you know? And you don't need money for it. You just need somebody to know it. And then you can teach the next person and they can teach the next person.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: Suddenly their can skills get better, their ability to get around the world gets better.
Erik Weihenmayer: Mm-hmm.
John Bramblitt: It's funny how art can do that. You know, you're basically learning how to map. You're learning how to understand the world around you in a different way, and then that just lends to better navigation, better travel. Isn't that weird?
Erik Weihenmayer: A hundred percent. When I started rock climbing, one of the guys said, Hey man, if you can push your body and become more aware of your environment, your brain will follow.
And, And it's kind of what you're saying, like for me, kayaking and climbing, it's all about trying to [00:13:00] expand my awareness so that I'm like, I'm feeling comfortable in this crazy environment. Uh, And that's really hard, you know, like when you're flying down a, a river and so many things are happening to happening to you at the same time.
You know, you're trying to get time to slow down so that you can be really aware of, of all this insanity and, um, so yeah, I love the fact that you just used the word awareness, you know?
So you, you drew from an early age, right? You had an aptitude for art and for drawing. And also I know that, you know, you had, uh, suffered from epilepsy and so you're in the hospital a lot in, in high school. And so in a weird, ironic way like that's probably gave you more time to focus on your drawing and your art, you know what I mean?
Like if you had been out, like playing baseball or whatever, like other kids, you know what I mean? You might not have been able to develop your art as, as much as if you, you know, were hanging out in that hospital. Just, you know, probably [00:14:00] bored, right?
John Bramblitt: I think, I think you're right. You know, it's weird how sometimes the negative things in your life or the darkness, it'll push you to something brighter or better, and.
I was sick so much as a child, like I had a kidney re removed by the time I was seven. I had neurological problems, was just in and outta hospitals. Then ended up getting Lyme's disease, which didn't help, you know, anything. And then, um, but art though, man, like I had two things, my family and had art and I drew literally every day.
And I'm, I guess I'm a little bit of an obsessive person, but, but I would draw and I would read about drawing and I would talk, talk to artists, but I literally drew every day because, it was the, it was something I had control over. Yeah. And whenever I was drawing, like if I was, you know, nine years old in the hospital, 11 years old in the hospital, whenever, and or having a procedure or something done, I, I could draw.
And it took me out of that. And in a very positive sort of way where. I wasn't worried about what was going on. I wasn't worried about like the, all the needles and all the sort of things that [00:15:00] they're doing and, and the tests and wasn't worried about tomorrow or, and, and, or thinking about the past or, or school, you know, about a test coming up and, or maybe a party I wanted to go to and I wasn't sure if I was gonna be feeling good enough to go to this party and hang out with my friends.
And so I could take a break from all that and draw and then, um, so it was just huge for me and that that was mm-hmm. That was how I kept my sanity, I think.
Erik Weihenmayer: Isn't that so interesting? I mean like this idea that like through that chaos and through all that uncertainty and stuff, you can't control. Just having agency over something, you know, is so therapeutic and, and makes you feel whole. You know,
John Bramblitt: Man, I love, I love the way you put that.
You, you, you put that so succinctly, you know, and that's, that's something like have agency, like you said. I love that so much. And. And it gives you hope. There was a time when a doctor said that, that I had about a year to live because of, um, all the stuff that was going on, and he was really trying to break it because any of the seizures could be the last, my last one 'cause of what, what was [00:16:00] going on at that time.
And that takes hope out of your life. And without hope, you know, there's no future. There's no reason for the moment, there's no nothing. Yeah. And the great thing about art is that even when you feel like you're out of control, it does give you that agency. It gives you ability to see that you can control something.
You can change something even if it's small. Yeah. You're not completely powerless in your life. You, You can affect a change. You can make things better. You can make things worse. You can, yeah. At least, at least you can affect things and sometimes the even that's just good to know.
Erik Weihenmayer: Hey everybody, this is Erik and I want to take a little break from our interview to tell you about No Barriers.
Obviously, we're interviewing these amazing No Barriers pioneers, but behind this podcast is an organization called No Barriers, predicated on the idea that what's within us is stronger than what's in our way. Our mission at No Barriers is to help people. With disabilities [00:17:00] to break through barriers, to tap into the light of the human spirit and to reclaim their lives, sometimes to reclaim their potential. In the business of shifting mindsets and it's proud work and I hope you'll get involved. Learn more about us. Check out our newsletter. No Barriers usa.org. No barriers podcast.com.
Well, things did get, I mean, worse in a way because despite, you know, having seizures now you go blind in college and, uh. And so when you went blind in college or lost your sight in college, , had you been thinking before that, like you wanted to be a professional artist, and so how did going blind affect that vision of your future?
John Bramblitt: That's such a
Erik Weihenmayer: good, yeah. I like You're like, what a question. Yeah.
John Bramblitt: No, no, no. I'm really laughing because I did art every day and even when I had, yeah, like when I was working jobs in [00:18:00] college, um, and, and all this, like, I, I.
Like I was an office manager, but um, I would get all my work done and I would just draw in the office, like during the free time. Yeah. Another call to come in. But I never thought about being a professional artist because I thought, ah. I thought, oh, um, what a silly way to make a living like you. How the world, are you ever gonna pay bills being an artist?
So I always thought, well,
Erik Weihenmayer: I used to piss my dad off 'cause I, he'd say, what do you want to do when you grow up? And I'd say, I want to be a poet. And he'd be like, a poet. What? And um, so
John Bramblitt: I thought, man, it'd be great to be a professor. Like go to go to school and, you know, to get a degree in something and be able to teach.
Yeah. And then you'd have all kinds of art time to make art and things like that. Right. And, um, you know, so I, I didn't really see art as, as being a career, but I, I was a professional artist probably for five years before I called myself for professional artists because events and things kept working and coming up I was working with nonprofits and, and charities and I started working with [00:19:00] museums and I would think, well, this is great. Like this is coming up. I wanna finish this project and then, and then I'll go back and I'll get, I'll get a graduate degree and then I'll work on becoming a professor or something. And then the next project would come up. And then there was like five years of projects that kept happening and then I thought, you know, it's been five years, maybe. Maybe. Maybe I'm doing what I should be doing. I'm a very slow learner, Erik.
Erik Weihenmayer: Well, We all need time to grow and you're at, at this age of your life and your experience, you're really wise and you've learned a lot and you have great perspective, but, right when you went blind, uh, I mean, it must have like rocked you, you know what I mean?
Like I imagine as an artist, as a draw, you're very visual and so now you've gone blind and you're, the way that, you know, visual information comes into your brain is, is snapped. You know what I mean?
John Bramblitt: Yeah. That was, that was awful. I mean, honestly, I, I, um, you know, being sick, having health problems before I thought I knew what depression was, but, [00:20:00] I really had no idea. I was so angry and I was so depressed, and I, I was, it was almost like I was mourning the loss, you know, like someone had died. But I guess I was mourning the life that I thought I was gonna have, and I was just, and I drew every day, and then suddenly I couldn't draw it all. It wasn't even a thought in my mind that I could still draw.
Um, there weren't really blind painters. It wasn't really a thought at the time. And, um, you know, this was so long ago. I'm so old. This was so long ago.
Yeah.
It wasn't really a thought. And, um, it wasn't until like a year after learning, starting to learn orientation and mobility. The white came.
Erik Weihenmayer: That
John Bramblitt: took about a year for me to dawn, dawn on me, that the streets that I was learning how to travel using all these touch techniques that, that, that was so much like a line that, and, and you're right, I was so visual.
I think I could draw before I could walk. Like I've got a weird brain where I can remember a painting that I did. All the strokes, all the colors, and yet [00:21:00] I can't remember, you know, like, um, two weeks ago, like what I, you know, bill this or that, or a number or, but, but a painting art for some reason I can remember very, very well and I can visualize it.
Um, I remember paintings that I saw when I was sighted. I remember them really, really well. And so, yeah, it's just kind of odd, but, um. My, my, I have a very selective memory as, as my wife was.
Erik Weihenmayer: Tell me about those early days of struggling to adapt as a blind painter. Like what were the first steps like? I must, I mean, you know, because like after you're on a roll, it's like, you know, you're on track now and you're just moving forward, but like the initial change in realization and then the next steps, those are big, you know.
John Bramblitt: Yeah. Um, well, I felt very isolated 'cause I, I, there weren't really blind painters and, and I, I say that with a grain of salt. There was a gentleman in Turkey and I know there was other people that are working on different techniques and, um, I think a big part of that was access to [00:22:00] information because, you know, for the first time we had computers that were starting to read to us and all this sort of stuff that helped us get, but I didn't know of anything.
So when I started to draw again, it was just sort of a last ditch effort for me to not. Lose all my sanity. I was just so depressed and so angry and I honestly thought I was out of my mind to try to draw and I didn't tell anybody because I figured people will go like, whoa, there goes John, that's, that's the last stroke.
We gotta lock him up now. You know, for his own. He, he's lost his mind. But, so I started learning, I started drawing and then I started using oil paint and um, 'cause I went into a play. Well, that's a long story, but. Um, someone helped me be able to get oil paint and I didn't realize how sticky and how hard it was to get oil paint off your hands.
So I didn't even tell my friends or my family that I was trying to draw that I was, I was trying to work on these techniques and I had a little white dog and I would wash my hands and I would think I've got 'em really clean. 'cause I thought, well, geez, I've washed 'em for like 10 minutes. Surely [00:23:00] they're cleaning by now.
And I would pet my dog. They're like, oh, you're so cute. Friends would come over and say, what happened to Anne? You know, there's purple. And I'd go like, it gets a crazy little dog. Who knows what she gets into? And so, needless to say, it got out pretty quick that I was trying to do this. And I have such supportive friends in the city that I live in.
It is just a r artsy sort of town. And um, so there's a nice mentality, but nobody thought I was crazy. Um, which, which was encouraging and, and, um,
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah,
John Bramblitt: but I just worked on it myself. And then finally I was so obsessed with art. I would paint 14, 16 hours a day then, and I would sleep a little bit. I'd go to school, just sleep a little.
'cause I was just so angry, so depressed. That was the only time that I wasn't really thinking about stuff, you know, it was like the only vacation I had for my own self training. And so. I wanted to meet other people that were obsessed with art. So, and a friend said, well, hey, why don't you show, and then you can meet other artists?
So, um, after a good while of me [00:24:00] learning how to paint, coming up with techniques, I, I did a show, I did a few shows, but I didn't tell people I was visually impaired. And the shows did well, they actually sold, and then word got out that it was visually impaired and then some stories were written. And that was probably the best thing that could have happened because some nonprofits and charities reached out to me and said, Hey, can you come talk to our people? Can you come talk to our clients? Mm. Maybe do a workshop
Erik Weihenmayer: then you're on a roll.
John Bramblitt: Yeah. Oh man. You know, I'm still so angry. And I was so depressed. But then I started meeting people that had bigger challenges in their lives, but they were actually meeting them.
They were rising up to the occasion, and they were planning out for the future. They had hopes., There were people that were quite quadriplegics and they had other health problems, and they had, on top of that, and they had these huge obstacles in their life that dwarfed like, I mean, just what I had towar was just minuscule compared to what they were going through.
And they were so happy. And there was just all these goals, all this stuff going on, and it made me [00:25:00] completely change my idea of what I was going through. And, And it, it was just the best thing that could have happened to me. And I, I started realizing that. I thought the vision loss had made me different than everyone else.
That isolated me, that it set me apart. But in reality, like everybody has something in their life that's bigger than they are. And I started to become aware of that and um, and I realized that the vision loss just, it changed me, but it made me more like everyone else in a way, you know, it was my obstacle.
It was my mountain, so, so to speak, to try to. You know, and running away from it wasn't doing me any good.
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Erik Weihenmayer: Well, I love the fact that you didn't run away from it because yeah, a lot of people would just in a practical way say, Hey, I'm blind now. I'm gonna turn to something that I can do in a reasonable way.
And you turned. Into the storm and like turned even more into this, this art form that most people would perceive as incredibly visual. You know? I'm so glad you, you turned the opposite way that you might have turned.
John Bramblitt: Well, Erik, you're so kind. Um, for you to put it in that light and put it that way, I think some people may say, wow, you're really stubborn.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah. Right, that too. Uh, so what were one of the breakthroughs, 'cause you mentioned this, like your haptic visualization and stuff, but like what, what was another breakthrough [00:27:00] that, and, and when you started painting and drawing as a blind person that a non-art could wrap their head around a little bit.
You know what I mean?
John Bramblitt: So I started trying to draw things like shapes. Square circles, triangles, things like that. And then,
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah,
John Bramblitt: in the, In the touch and feel, things that I really intimately knew what they looked like. Like I had a baseball that my grandfather gave me when I was seven years old, and he passed away, but it had all these little cut marks and, and, and little, little little burrs and stuff from the leather where bats hit it.
And I knew that thing, you know, backwards and forward. So I could touch it and I could visualize what it looked like every little break in the seam. And I knew what it looked like in my mind so I could touch it. So visualizing that, actually touching it and then being able to understand what that looked like and then being able to do the shapes.
But then the big thing was, um, I had a little wooden statue of a Buddha that somebody had given me, but it was something I could touch and I knew what it looked like. So I could feel the face and I could visualize the face 'cause I had seen it. But then I could touch it and see what it feels like compared to what I'm feeling, you know, what I remember to what [00:28:00] I'm touching.
Every little bit of it. And then start trying to draw it and start trying to get those little points, like from the, what I was remembering, what I was feeling onto the paper. And I remember it took me an entire night to do this little line drawing of this tiny little, you know, this just little drawing and just crumpling up paper all night long.
Like I started the evening and then by like the next morning when the sun came up, I finally had this drawing of this little Buddha. And it was a terrible, awful drawing. It was so misshapen and awful, but it was a little drawing of the Buddha. And I knew from art that if you can do something a little bit, then you can keep adding to it.
You get to a, to a certain point on one day. The next day, you can point, you can push it just a little bit further. The next day you can push it a little bit further. And that, that was when I thought, oh my goodness. I didn't know if I'd ever be able to use color, but I knew that I would at least be able to make some sort of shapes, I'd be able to do something.
And then, And then from then it just became a, um, a, a [00:29:00] process of just trying something new every, every time that I went. Like, oh, I wonder if I could refine it a little bit more. Right. I wonder if I could the lines a little bit closer together and then when it came to color, you know, starting with two colors, then adding a third painting with those three colors for a month, you know, and then adding another color and mixing it so it feels real thick, it feels real thin.
Um, And just working on that just really slowly. What's funny is that it's just mind numbingly slow. So if, if I had to go back and do that, you know, and it would, it would drive me bananas. But at the time though, I'm just sweating bullets. 'cause I'm just thinking about like every little, trying to push every little thing a little bit.
Erik Weihenmayer: Mm.
John Bramblitt: Shadow. I mean, how do you draw a shadow? Because it's not the absence of light, but it's not full light. So it's just weird in between sort of thing. And it's just, you know, so you read about other artists, you read about Monet saying, oh, never use black. You're like, oh, whatcha talking about. This other artist you know, saying like, yo definitely use black. So experimenting, you're just trying all this stuff and. [00:30:00] The wonderful thing is that you're constantly failing and it's just failure after failure. But every time you fail, then you know, it pushes you a little bit fur further because you know what not to do, and then you start narrowing in on something that's actually gonna work for that technique then.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: And that's what I, I'm still doing, I, I came up with a different way of drawing a few years ago that
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: Completely changed everything that, that, that I, I do. And, um, yeah, it's just, it's. I'm a huge nerd. I'm just a huge nerd when it comes to art. I just love trying new things.
Erik Weihenmayer: I've heard you talk about failure and you know, I would think that when you sit there in front of a painting or that, you know, maybe just cons conceptualizing it, it's overwhelming.
It's like when I start a guitar song, sometimes I get overwhelmed, you know, when I'm trying to learn a new song. But you're saying perfectionism is like almost like a curse when you're an artist, right? Because it is constantly making mistakes and fixing your mistakes 'cause Right, you can just keep painting [00:31:00] over the mistakes, right?
John Bramblitt: Yeah, yeah. You know, and I've noticed that if I'm working on a painting, if there's not some point around the middle where I'm thinking like, oh, I think this was a mistake, I don't know. I don't know if I could do this, if it's gonna turn out right. If I don't get that, then I start to worry because it means I haven't pushed myself enough in it, you know?
And, um, which is great. I mean, like, there's sometimes you do a painting and it just kind of flows out and, and that's, that's good too, you know, but
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: But you know, you haven't really grown as an artist. Like you, you've done techniques that you've done before. I, I don't know if that makes sense, but it's like walk on that little edge where you're pushing yourself and you're don't know exactly if this technique is, is going to do what you want it to, but then, um, um, somebody looks at it and goes like, goes like, oh yeah. You know, and they see what you were thinking. And I think like, yes.
Erik Weihenmayer: Ha, that must be so fun. Hey, you also use a lot of fingers in there i, I would imagine, right? Because when I took your blind painting class, I mean, my fingers were covered in paint. I was [00:32:00] like almost finger painting. You know, so I imagine you're covered in paint from head to toe like most of your life, right? It's gotta be pretty messy. I know a guy who doesn't like to walk on the beach because he doesn't like sand between his toes.
So if metaphorically you don't like sand between your toes, you're in trouble as a blind artist, right?
John Bramblitt: Oh man. Yeah, that's true. Although, although you do get better and I, I came up with this paint that dries almost immediately.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: Um, to draw with the other paint still gets everywhere, but at least to draw with, um, is nice.
And, and I, I have to keep my fingers pretty clean. Yeah. So I paint on them, but if I get paint on my fingers, I can't feel any, any, ah, detail, so I'm constantly cleaning my fingers. So it's just, it's a, it's a struggle,
Erik Weihenmayer: but yeah, it's a balance.
John Bramblitt: Yeah. But, and
Erik Weihenmayer: how do you judge, uh, John, how do you, like, you painted that Buddha and you said it turned out awful.
How do you judge beauty, like as a blind artist? Can you feel the end product and assess it? Or are you asking [00:33:00] other people to assess it? How does that all work?
Speaker 4: A, a little bit of both. When, when I first started, um, I, I never really wanted anybody to critique my paintings, but, but that's just because I wasn't ready for it.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: Because. I didn't really know what I was doing and, and nobody else could know what I was doing 'cause those techniques didn't exist yet. 'cause I was still coming up with 'em. And so most of what I was trying to work on was still in my head. So, it's funny 'cause I like, I have to wait for the paint to dry and then I can go back in and see if the lines are the way that I thought that I laid them down and what I, what I wanted.
And I can go back and I, I can feel the, the reference and see, and sometimes like, you know, it's, it is the same way that a sighted artist works, I should say. So. One technique that a sight artist might use when they're drawing, if they're, let's say if they're gonna, um, sketch, um, like I have a coffee cup here, so if I have this cup and they're gonna sketch a line of it, instead of just making one line going down the side, that they might make a dozen lines, just like a bunch of like, you know, scribble, scribble, scribble, scribble, scribble.[00:34:00]
And then they'll look at it with their eyes and they'll see which line actually ma matches the angle that they were wanting to go. Yeah. And that's the line that they'll darken. So one way that I'll draw it is that I'll, I'll draw, I'll draw a line, and then once it dries is I can go in there and go like, oh, no, no, no.
That, that actually angled in at the bottom. Like, that's not, you know, that doesn't make sense for, you know, a, a cup like that. Like no cup does that. So, so I can feel it. And then, um, well this new paint that I have, I could actually make more lines 'cause they'll dry really quickly. And the ones that I don't like, I can, I can, um, gloss over.
So it, so it's a little bit quicker way, but.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: So, but instead of using your eyes to be able to judge like the spatial relationship of it, of like one line being closer to another, you can use your fingertips. So it's the same way that if I, um, like in my coffee cup now, like I can feel the top so I can feel one side, and then I can feel the other side.
So I know how far apart those are. You know, I can feel it. Um, you know, and if I use that coffee cup every day, I know exactly what it feels like. I know, oh, that's my coffee cup, because [00:35:00] it's that shape, or whatever. Same way with the drawings on a painting. Um, I can make a line, I can make another line, and in my mind I know about how far apart they should feel, what it should feel like or what it should look like.
I don't know if I'm explaining that very well, but it
Erik Weihenmayer: No, you are,
John Bramblitt: you get, you get to a point, you know, where you just use your hands to visualize everything. So same way, like if I'm walking down the hall, like I'll trail the, the hall, the, I don't need to touch everything, but Right. I'll feel like the doorway and then I, I can tap the doorway a little bit with my hand.
And then I know where the other side of it is, so I don't have to reach out and touch the other side because I know like, oh, like walk through the middle. I'm not gonna hit it. You know? 'cause in my mind, I know how big it is and
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah,
John Bramblitt: you start applying that, but you do it constantly. You do it every day and you're to, you're constantly feeling all these lines and mental acuity for it. Like your ability to touch and visualize it and to understand it.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: So whenever I was first drawing. Everything was very simple. Like I actually have a painting behind me for [00:36:00] anyone who's visual, or if you're looking at this, there's a painting that I did like maybe 20 years ago, and it's of a face, but it's just an eye and it's grayed out and there's no shading, um, there's no, um, shadows, there's no blending of color.
'cause I couldn't blend colors, then I couldn't do any shading. So every color had its own spot and that's, that's where that color lived. So, um. So that was the, the most that I could do then. So 20 years ago I couldn't, I couldn't do anymore. So they used to keep working on technique. Mm-hmm. If I knew what user painting was, I'd hold it up for, for anybody to look at it.
But then you start learning more techniques and,
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah.
John Bramblitt: It's hard to explain sometimes, but it's easy to show in a workshop.
Didrik Johnck: No Barriers would like to thank Maison Hennessy, a partner since 2023 for supporting our projects and closely collaborating with us to promote diversity and inclusion amongst their employees.
Fueled by team spirit and collaboration. Hennessy believes that its rope team is its greatest strength and its greatest [00:37:00] responsibility. This year, the world's leading cognac will celebrate 260 years of successes and challenges overcome through the strength of its employees, partners, and consumers across more than 160 countries.
To mark this milestone, Hennessy has commissioned an art piece from John Bramblett, a longtime friend of No Barriers. Thank you Maison Hennessy for leaning into this no barrier's life.
Erik Weihenmayer: So you kind of began to let go of vision, I guess in, in a way. I'll compare it to myself like I went blind when I was 14, John. Right. And so like I, when I try to visualize like faces and things like that, they're incredibly complicated. Like the lines and, and you're right, the recesses and as you mentioned, the shadow and the light. Like, I've forgotten some of that stuff. Like I don't feel very versed in the visual world.
Like sometimes when I picture a face, it like kind of appears like a cartoon character in my mind. So how did you wrestle with that, that [00:38:00] you're now not getting like constant bombardment of visual information that's kind of reinforcing the visual world for you? You know what I mean? Like your art must have changed and, and become maybe more abstract.
John Bramblitt: It did, it did. It did change quite a bit. And one thing that I think helped me with it was that since I started making art, since I was really little, and then before I lost the eyesight, I, I could do portraits. I, I could do cartoon work, anime a little bit. Anime wasn't that big then, but I could do some, you know, so some of that original old eighties anime, the cartooning and then,
Erik Weihenmayer: right.
John Bramblitt: And, and, and draw a portrait of a person that could do the blueprints for a house that. I knew all that, like how to, how to draw with, with charcoal shading. And I was so worried whenever I lost the eyesight that I was going to even forget what color looked like and I was just so, and then when I started learning how to draw again, relea, you know, learning the new techniques.
It was mostly learning how to adapt what I already knew how to do, which was nice. So it was just the same way learning how [00:39:00] to cook again, right? Like I cook before I lost my eyesight, but then I had to learn new, new techniques because the way I chopped, the way I handle hot stuff in the, you know, in the kitchen.
Now I don't have to think about it. But then it was like, you know, it was very much if I wanted to chop an onion I'd, I'd better think about what I'm doing because I have to have the new techniques. And I know, like when I was learning the cane, there was definitely the switchover of, of learning not to trust, like switching over your vision in a way because, um, like my, my, my orientation in mobility instructor made me wear a mask over my eyes because I was, I would have this idea of an open sidewalk in my mind that I'm visualizing.
I'm using my cane, but it, but it's a sidewalk i've walked down a thousand times, so in my mind I'm seeing the sidewalk. And in reality, I'm, I'm, I'm walking into a pole or a tree, you know, and I'm totally, and so, so she put a mask over my, my face so that I'm not visualizing
Erik Weihenmayer: right.
John Bramblitt: Oh, you, you, whatever it is that I think I'm seeing. [00:40:00] It's just a, you know, it's just an, it's just my imagination. And um, so I know to really focus on that cane. And that was brilliant 'cause that really made me start focusing on my hands. And touching and trying to visualize with my hands. And
Erik Weihenmayer: huh.
John Bramblitt: And whenever I started painting and drawing, I had this complex, I guess really like where I, I didn't, I felt like I don't, you know, I don't know if this is true, but I felt like that a lot of times people with visual impairments are, um, are looked over like, like people don't know what you understand and sometimes they don't think that you get what's going on or how much you know about the world around you.
I wanted to let people know that I'm, I was still in here, I still understood things. I was still drawing. And, um, and so whenever I started drawing, part of that was to let people know I wanted to make it as realistic as I could. That was one reason for drawing instead of sculpture, um, was that I wanted people to know that I still understood, like I understood what things look like and, and from that I thought [00:41:00] maybe people could infer like, Hey, you know, he is still got some sort of intellect. He's still
Erik Weihenmayer: up. Yeah.
John Bramblitt: How much ever he had to begin with. He still has it, you know,
Erik Weihenmayer: but, but, But then that, that change, right. That evolved a little bit, right? Like as you get older, you kind of let go of all of some of that maybe.
John Bramblitt: Yeah. You know, if I did a drawing of a person and it looked like the person, I would think like, oh, that's a good drawing.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: You're losing the eyesight. You know, it's funny because people also feel a certain way and there's a, a certain way that people may make you feel, and there's, I, you know, I don't wanna say, like, I don't, I don't wanna sound too metaphysical or anything. But it's just, there's, there's a way that people are like, and the way that you understand them, and
Erik Weihenmayer: yes,
John Bramblitt: it became just as important, if not more important than in the artwork that you showed how that person makes you feel, or, or how, how that scene is or, or whatever it is about it.
So I wanted people to look at it and be able to understand what it looks like. But I started drawing with a lot more [00:42:00] minimal lines 'cause I wanted the enough lines so people can look at it and go like, oh, I know what that is. But it was more important that people felt what it was like. And, um, so the emotion, the feeling and
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah, it's
John Bramblitt: sort of a, a poetic realism except, um, a, a way of abstract realism, you know, where.
You're just, you, you're using the color to convey the emotion and the lines to convey the emotion. But
Erik Weihenmayer: yeah, I mean, when I could see my favorite paintings were those where essentially you're looking at a picture, but you're seeing inside the artist's minds, you're seeing the art, like how they see the world.
And to me that's like, it's, it's psychology. You're right. It's emotion. Um, so you must have a vibrant mind. Right? You know, they say. This PLAs brain plasticity is something I've looked at a lot. You know, when something breaks in the, in the brain, like your, your connection with your eyesight or your hearing, um, you know, it's the brain that really sees, it's the brain that hears, it's the brain that [00:43:00] smells, uh, you know, the, the eyes, the nose, um, the ears.
Those are just, you know, the hardware that gets the information into the brain. It's the brain that's actually. Interpreting our all of this, right? So you must like, I, I want to know what you see in your mind.
John Bramblitt: Yeah. No man, I'm, I'm so glad you brought that up. 'cause a lot of times, you know, um, people will say like, seeing is believing and all this, but you're so right.
Like, your brain is almost like a computer and it has these different, um, inputs. It's almost like how your computer can have a camera, it can have, you know, a microphone. And our brain has all this. So the part that it, that makes images in our brain. It's the same part that's putting images together with information coming from the eyes, but it's also the same part with our imagination.
Or if you're dreaming. So a sighted person who's dreaming at night will will have these images and they'll seem really extremely real. And you know, that's why like you have a nightmare. You'll wake up and you're like, oh my goodness. You know You're scared. Yeah. Or having an hallucination and they can't tell it's [00:44:00] fake because that part of your brain, it isn't wired to really know what's true or false.
It's just making images. So you can learn how to visualize using other, other things. And, And we do, like our brain is, is taking in all the sensory information, the smells, the, the sight, the sounds. And it's, it's putting together our awareness of the world. And you know, for me, I live in a very technicolor world where when I hear a sound always, it's always sound's always been color for me.
Music's always been color. Uh, but now it's even more so. And because I, I am always thinking about art because I'm a little obsessed. There's always images coming up, and I know 90% of the images don't have anything to do with reality. You know, like somebody will walk in and I, I, I too will have like a cartoon image or what this person might look like or whatever, or might just be kind of gr gray. But I, or a, just an understanding of where they are in the room, you know? And I don't really know, but in my mind it's sort of a placeholder, kind of like.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
John Bramblitt: Are there, you know, I'm not, I'm not gonna walk there 'cause I'll walk into that person. But, [00:45:00] but then if I'm doing a workshop and I've never been in that room before, it'll be a very, like, gray, like, not really much that's going on, but then by the end of the workshop,
Erik Weihenmayer: right,
John Bramblitt: it's just colorful space. 'Cause everybody's been laughing and, and having good time and, and so when I walk back into that room again, it's like I know which room I in, suddenly it fills in with all this color. And I know it's just imagination, but in, you know, but. In a way, we all live in a dream world, so, so,
Erik Weihenmayer: but that's beautiful. And I've heard you talk about the idea of how important, you know, as an artist perception is, right. Do you wanna explain that? Like just, you know, from your perspective, your perceptions of Right. That's what you're alluding to, right?
John Bramblitt: Yeah yeah. But, um. You know what's interesting, like, like, well, when it comes to art, but it's, you go into a gallery and, um, and it's all about vision, you know? Yeah. And it's almost, you walked into a church where, or somewhere where everybody's hush and nobody's really talking. And
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah,
John Bramblitt: it's all about vision, but in life it's about everything.
It's [00:46:00] about, it's about how you feel, it's about, you know, your understanding about something. , Let's say if my mother walked into the room. Everybody would be getting the same physical cues about her. Like everybody would see, like the way she looks, the clothes she's wearing, um, her hairstyle, all this.
They would hear her voice, um, um, they would understand the way she's carrying herself, all this, and they'd get all these cues and then they would get this perception of what they might be like. Right. Um, and that's just perception, you know? And that, you know, so you have this perception and then you have reality.
That's the way we take in the world. It's like we've gotta use all, all of our senses when we're making art.
Erik Weihenmayer: Right.
John Bramblitt: You know, we, we've gotta use every sense that we have and put that in there, whether we're appreciating art, whether you know, we're or we're. So I'm not sure.
Is that, is that,
Erik Weihenmayer: no, that's it. That was it. Yeah. So yeah, you, you're, you get that perception through all your senses and that's, that takes work and, and practice and so forth. And so then you have to figure out then how to take that perception and [00:47:00] translate it into that, into that drawing or painting or that mural.
Wow.
John Bramblitt: And you know, when I first started, I didn't, you know, I mentioned that I didn't really know of any other visually impaired painters. There weren't really, wasn't anybody doing what I was doing. Um, Since then, like I, I don't know. Like, I've worked on the techniques and there's other people that were working on stuff as well, and I am sure.
And, but I've, I've now though, um, and the, the techniques that I, I, I, I've taught so many people and then they've gone on and taught and now there's hundreds if not thousands of visually impaired painters and there's people who are painting that have never had sight, which I think is just
Erik Weihenmayer: wow.
John Bramblitt: Incredible.
And they're using colors in the way that a writer would use at, at adjectives, you know, where red, red can mean a certain thing and a blue can mean a certain thing. And, and, and they might be doing abstract paintings, but they're painting in a way that is showing an understanding of the world that it's just so interesting and so valid and so [00:48:00] important and sighted people, it will look at a lot of this art and they'll be like, oh my goodness, I never thought about using color that way.
And I think how incredible is that? You know, you've got a visual impaired person that's never seen that's showing people who have seen all their life and have thought about art, you know, all their life. Yeah. And, um, and they're learning something and, and I just, I, I don't know. I think, um, I think art is such a interesting way to communicate thoughts and ideas and it's such a positive thing.
And I think eventually because the way that I paint, it's just cane training and we're teaching children who are visually impaired how to, how to paint. 'cause it's helping with their cane skills. Like they just explodes. I think in 20 years it might be really, really normal for anybody with a visual impairment to have had some art classes and people will be like, wonderful. Oh, you're blind. Oh yeah, of course, of course. You know how to draw, you know, 'cause you're blind. Every, every blind person knows how to paint a little bit.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, Yeah. I, I wasn't even able to take art [00:49:00] class because they said I'd cut myself with the Exacto knife and like some of the tools they were using, so.
So that was back in the eighties, but, uh, yeah, so I, I kind of like missed out on a little bit of that stuff.
John Bramblitt: A lot of schools are still that way, you know, it, it's, which is sad, but, um, but that's important, you know, have discussions and, you know, like pod podcasts like yours where
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah.
You
John Bramblitt: understand, you know, what's, what's out there. And, and, you know, and I, I don't know what, you know, as long, as, long as people keep dreaming and keep pushing things, that it's just gonna get better, I think.
Erik Weihenmayer: Have you thought about, um, maybe hosting , a blind art exhibit with some like blind painters or maybe disabled painters or, I mean, not that you're exclusively focused on other blind painters, but, um, that would be really cool, wouldn't it?
How people paint differently and how they see the world differently. You could see, and as you mentioned, some other people maybe never saw. That would be so cool.
John Bramblitt: Yeah. You know, I've done a lot of things where I've gone in and [00:50:00] helped support school systems and things where we'll have, um, people with visual impairments and other disabilities.
But, But I've done a couple, two or three shows at a large GA galleries where we've had visually impaired. There was one where we actually had 2, 2, 2 blind photographers. Wow. And, um, and I can't think of their last names. That's so terrible. With, with memory, I can remember paintings, but I can't remember anything else in my life.
But one is something, I'm so sorry, Peter. Um, but he has, he's, he's completely visually impaired and he has a camera that he's brailed on so that he can fill it. It's like a old film camera, all the F stops. And then in his studio, he's also has it taped out for the different F stops. So when he is doing sittings, he'll know how to set the equipment up.
And then there's another gentleman named Bruce. I'm the last name is blanking on me.
Erik Weihenmayer: First names are fine.
John Bramblitt: Oh, good, good. And then, um, but he does, what's cool about him is that he'll do, um, underwater photography and he can only see things when he really blows things up. So he'll go on diving with some people and he'll just take lots and lots of [00:51:00] pictures.
Then he'll bring it back to the studio and they'll blow it up on a giant screen and then he'll go photos and then they'll figure out like, what's good ones, and then he'll print them out on this really cool. Um. Um, epoxy sort of way. So it almost looks like the picture is in water, but they're really cool i've heard. So,
And then I, I worked with some visually impaired sculptors, but, um, I, I did a, I did a talk once at the Met, um, in New York with, um, a visually impaired artist from, um, England and one from somewhere else. , Getting art together like that is such a positive way to send a message and let people know.
And that's a big reason I started doing murals was because whenever, like somebody would see a mural in a neighborhood or something and they would go like, oh, that's done by a blind painter. That's weird. Yeah. So they would start asking questions and then it just le leads to more disability awareness.
And, you know, people were like, oh, I didn't even know. I didn't know anything about like, like what, what, what was available out there. So it's,
Erik Weihenmayer: Hmm. Yeah. Anyway. Well, No Barriers. We should, uh, sponsor that. That'd be cool.
John Bramblitt: Oh, man, man, that, that, [00:52:00] that would be cool. I'm down. Anything when it would Done All right.
Years color color me in.
Erik Weihenmayer: All right. Well, I'm gonna come visit you sometime out in your art, cool art studio and have some espressos with you and, uh, oh, well,
John Bramblitt: that, that, that would be fun. Yeah, we can definitely. All right. Get you hooked up all the caffeine you want.
Erik Weihenmayer: Thanks, buddy. John, thank you so much. It's been so fun spending an hour with you and, I'm such a fan and I, we gotta figure out more ways of collaborating and, and spending more time together, so thanks friend.
John Bramblitt: Man. All right. I, I appreciate you spending this hour. This has been so much fun, and anytime there's anything I, I, I can do with you, man, let me know. I always, always, I always love hanging out with you.
Erik Weihenmayer: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Let's, uh, let's dream together. Hey John, thanks so much. No barriers to everyone.
John Bramblitt: Thank you so much Erik.
Have, have a wonderful day.
Erik Weihenmayer: Cool.
Didrik Johnck: The production team behind this podcast includes producer Didrik Johnck. That's me, [00:53:00] an audio engineer, Tyler Kottman. Special thanks to the Dan Ryan Band for our intro song. Guidance. And thanks to all of you for listening. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, share it, and hey, we'd be thrilled for a review.
Show notes can be found@nobarrierspodcast.com. There's also a link there to shoot me an email with any suggestions or guest ideas for the show. Thanks so much and have a great day.
