Artist's failing eyes bring new vision
By Tom Beal
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
If you go
What: "Tineo: Myth, Legend and Angelic Faith"
Where: Galeria Mistica, 2318 S. Fourth Ave., South Tucson.
When: Artist reception 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Exhibit continues through March 15. Gallery hours are 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
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"It's a miracle: Blind man paints again."
Andrew Potok, a Vermont artist who stopped painting when he lost his vision to retinitis pigmentosa, bristles at stories that credit divine intervention for what is actually determined adaptation.
Potok, author of "Ordinary Daylight: Portrait of an Artist Going Blind" and an advocate for the disabled, hasn't met Tucson muralist David Tineo, but he can appreciate Tineo's struggle to paint after losing most of his central vision to macular degeneration.
"What he has done that's really great is to learn and be innovative and to do what he needs to do. It's not heroic. It is smart and it's human and it's touching and it's great," Potok said.
Last year, in the first of a series of Arizona Daily Star articles on Tineo's art and his vision, Tineo said he had never tested the limits of his artistic ability and hoped his diminishing eyesight might be a catalyst.
He's now beginning to feel that has happened, and his one-man show opening Sunday at Galeria Mistica in South Tucson may be the proof.
Three mural-sized canvasses he created for the show's entryway hold images that will be familiar to those who have seen Tineo's work around town, but they are rendered in more abstract lines and sometimes in lighter colors.
Those familiar with Tineo's work were amazed by the new pieces at a pre-show held for collectors and friends, said Galeria Mistica owner Gene Edwards.
"This is a new vision, and I think it's coming from his loss of sight causing him to be freer and more expressive," Edwards said. "There were 'oohs' and 'ahs,' and they went up and touched it."
The paintings have a raised surface, a texture created by Tineo's latest adaptation to the loss of his central vision. Tineo laid the nearly 10-by-6-foot canvasses on the floor of his tiny studio and outlined his concepts with a caulk gun and a wet sponge before picking up his paintbrushes.
The tactile surface, he said, made it possible for him to paint even on "bad-eye days" when he has the most trouble making out light, shadow and color.
"I'm letting go within myself," he said, "not being afraid that I may one day not see at all."
Potok, the acclaimed Vermont painter who turned to writing when he began to go blind, said Tineo is right to continue painting while he still has vision left.
When he was almost totally blind, Potok tried to paint again. He used pushpins to mark his progress and paint tubes labeled in Braille. He decided it wasn't art and concluded, as he wrote in his book's preface, "that painting might best be left to the sighted."
On the telephone this week he said he regrets, still, that he didn't paint when the symptoms of retinitis pigmentosa started sapping his vision — when he still saw the world, albeit differently.
"When I was a totally sighted painter, I wanted to be part of the mainstream. I wasn't painting for my own joy but because I wanted to please people and be a big shot."
Last week, as Tineo prepared for his one-man show, he expressed similar thoughts about his struggle to paint with limited vision.
"Sometimes, I have no idea what I'm painting, maybe a glimpse — it's all instinct; it's inside. There is really nothing left to prove. I'm past paying dues, having to explain myself. I have nothing left but to create."
Tineo, who has painted or supervised more than 200 murals, mostly in Tucson, lost most of his central vision to macular degeneration more than two years ago. He has had to give up driving and working as an art instructor at Pima Community College, but he continues to paint.
"I don't have control over when I can see," he said. "I'm on a ship. I'm not steering, so I'm going to enjoy the ride."
If you go
What: "Tineo: Myth, Legend and Angelic Faith"
Where: Galeria Mistica, 2318 S. Fourth Ave., South Tucson.
When: Artist reception 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.
Exhibit continues through March 15. Gallery hours are 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
● Contact reporter Tom Beal at 573-4158 or tbeal@azstarnet.com.
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