ST. PETERSBURG – Art Beyond Sight Month will be celebrated Saturday at the Museum of Fine Arts with an unusual exploration of art for both the sighted and visually impaired.

Here is the schedule of events:

• 10-10:30 a.m.: White Cane Awareness Day Walk, which starts in Williams Park and is sponsored by Lighthouse of Pinellas. The sighted population can learn and feel what is required to navigate the streets and to trust others to help them.

• 11 a.m.-noon: You can use a Museum “treasure hunt” sheet to find Georgia O’Keeffe’s Poppy (1927), one of the most brilliant paintings in the collection. You will also have the opportunity to learn more about community agencies that assist the visually impaired. O’Keeffe, one of America’s greatest artists, lived to be 98 and began to lose her sight late in life. With the encouragement of her longtime assistant Juan Hamilton, a potter, she learned to produce ceramic objects to keep her creativity alive.
  
• Noon-12:30 p.m.: In “Georgia O’Keeffe: Beyond Sight,” Nan Colton, the Museum’s performing artist-in-residence, focuses on the artist’s struggles as she began to lose her sight. With her extraordinary determination, O’Keeffe persevered with ceramic art when she could no longer paint.
• 12:30-1:30 p.m.: Swings Tampa Bay, a grassroots group of young people, will do what it does best—bring people together. Everyone will be given a plank of wood and a piece of rope to create an artistic swing. The visually challenged can also participate; they will be given Braille cards, for example, identifying colors. The goal is to encourage conversation and new friendships. This group was initiated by University of South Florida students Reuben Pressman and Hunter Payne.

According to Museum Director Kent Lydecker, “the MFA is truly a place for all people. On Saturday, we want to bring the visually challenged and the sighted communities together to discover art.”

   If You Go

The Museum is open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is $17 for adults, $15 for those 65 and older, and $10 for students seven and older, including college students with current I.D. Children under seven and Museum members are admitted free. Groups of 10 or more adults pay only $12 per person and children $4 each with prior reservations.

The MFA Café is open from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. The Museum Store has been named the area’s best by the duPont Registry. For more information, please call 727.896.2667 or visit the website at www.fine-arts.org. For café reservations, please call 727.822.1032.