Sarah Barker does not have an art education or a background in art history, yet she is changing history with her tactile art exhibit that is aimed specifically at the visually impaired.

Barker, 69, a retired certified financial planner who lives in Wilmington, experienced an epiphany shortly before retirement in 2000. It was through knowing a deaf woman, who claimed that she can experience music, that Barker started on her path to help blind people see colors.

“If the deaf can enjoy music, how can the blind enjoy art? That was the question that haunted me,” she said.

Originally Barker thought of different kinds of paper with a texture to represent each color, then she thought of different types of inks.

“But those procedures would involve a chemist. I kept thinking, what can I do? I knew there were tons of different fabrics, so I thought I’d assign colors to fabrics,” she said.

What resulted was The B-Code, a system where fabrics are assigned to colors, helping the visually impaired to “see” with their fingers. It is through using The B-Code system that Barker quilts a representation of a work of art.

“You can’t touch colors, but you can touch something that is a color. A code is absolutely necessary, just like in Braille, dots are assigned to letters, letters are assigned to sounds,” Barker said.

Through this code, Barker has assigned color to fabrics, fabrics which can be touched by the blind, and “read” like Braille.

According to The B-Code: blue is wool, purple is linen, red is satin, orange is taffeta, yellow is flannel, green is velvet, white is cotton, brown is leather, and the firmer the color, the darker it is. Firmness is achieved by using different kinds of batting which ranges in softness.

“I said, ‘no, this’ll never work’ a hundred times,” Barker said, “But the idea just kept haunting me.”

“My goal is to get other people to realize that there is a code. In the future I’d like every museum to have their own sewing circle. So much of blind ‘seeing’ comes from touch,” she said. “Many museums are trying (to aide the visually impaired), some museums make a diorama, which is three-dimensional. The Chicago museum has a tactiles exhibit which is made with a plastic that forms ridges. Others have made simple drawings using puff paint.”

Barker’s quilted art works are currently on display in Columbus at The Ohio State University Urban Arts Space.

“I haven’t heard that any blind have come to Columbus, but they have had some developmentally disabled come, and they are thrilled to be able to touch,” Barker said. “I’ve had two or three color blind people say that they can feel the difference that they can’t see.”

It’s a different and additional way to appreciate great works of art. Wouldn’t it be great if museums had two or three pictures that are represented by The B-Code?”

Barker has found that museums are starting to say there’s more ways to reach out to the blind.

“Blind or not, you can enjoy it,” she said.

Barker learned to sew as a child in 4-H. For her masterpiece representations, Barker quilts using a poster reproduction of the artwork to guide her. Only the straight lines are sewn with the aide of a sewing machine, the rest is hand stitched by Barker. Barker’s “Starry Night” representation of Vincent Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” took six months to complete.

Barker’s representations include famous works by Alexander Calder, Andrew Wyeth, Edvard Munch, Georgia O’Keeffe, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Pablo Picasso, Diego Rivera, Van Gogh and others.

On Nov. 6, Barker will be at the OSU Urban Arts Space to talk to anyone interested in her work and how it was accomplished. She will be available to answer questions between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

On Dec. 4, OSU Urban Arts Space will host an Artists Reception for Barker and other exhibiting artists from 5 to 7 p.m. OSU’s Urban Art Space is located at 50 W. Town St., Columbus.