What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1467010
captures every exact detail of your face, even pores, scars, the texture of the skin … it's made three dimensional. There's detail the human eye misses that you can only feel with your hands." McConnell-Dickerson made the casts over the course of 16 years after she lost her sight. She hopes her exhibit will cause various museums to rethink the accessibility of their exhibits. "A Cast of Blues" has an audio tour version that reads the text to visitors, which can be especially beneficial for children who aren't reading yet or adults who have difficulty seeing and/or reading. The exhibit also places the items at a low enough level to encourage more people to touch them. "Many times exhibits don't consider younger visitors," she says. "If you're looking at a painting way up there, or in the case of the masks, you'd be looking up noses, which would be no fun for them." Placing them lower makes those in wheelchairs and others feel more included and considered, she says. Getting the legendary musicians to agree to the process sometimes took a lot of convincing. As McConnell-Dickerson spent a little extra time with each of them for the casting process, she got to know more intimate parts of their personal history. "The friendship forms after casting, having had an up-close and personal interaction where the subject is … allowing me to touch their face and cover their eyes, mouth, ears and (experience) sensory deprivation," McConnell-Dickerson says. "There's a lot of trust that's extended to me … an exchange of energy." Weems says the cast faces help carry on an important part of the history of the South and of the blues. Bringing them to an audience who's never seen them and may have very little handle on the influence of the blues is exactly what the Music Education Initiative is about. "We're sharing things people here would not normally get to see," he says. You don't have to know anything about the blues to experience this gallery. Each cast and photo has a generous placard telling guests where the musician grew up and what led to their rise to fame. Many of them have connections to Arkansas and to each other. Of the photographs, only one is directly next to the corresponding blues icon's face, an image of the grave of Robert Johnson, the blues legend who's known for his deal with the devil at the crossroads. His fans made many false headstones over the years, and the original one was only traceable due to a connection with the wife of a man who helped bury him, the caption reads. Many of the descriptions shed light on the struggle the artists went through only to be recognized fairly MAY 8-14, 2022 WHAT'S UP! 9 See Blues Page 37 Artist Sharon McConnell-Dickerson makes her life masks a little differently from others. For one thing, she doesn't use cutoff straws in nostrils to keep materials from blocking them. The straws are a quick way to injure someone and also create stressed out facial expressions, she says. Dickerson uses a nontoxic material for her masks called alginate, which is a mixture of seaweed and water, what dentists use to make impressions of teeth. Pictured is Koko Taylor. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/April Wallace) There are a couple blues legends that McConnell-Dickerson was unable to cast in her 16 years of this project. Etta James declined due to her age, she says. B.B. King agreed to the project in person, but the request was turned down by his attorney. Pictured here is Bobby Rush. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/April Wallace) Willie King was a community activist and described his music as "struggling blues," influenced by blues and gospel music. He was raised by his grandparents on a plantation and constructed his first guitar by nailing a string of bailing wire to a tree. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/April Wallace) Jessie Mae Hemphill was an independent, feisty woman who established her career in the world of country blues at a time when the field was dominated by men, according to "A Cast of Blues" placard. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/April Wallace)