Dublin Business Plan

Imagine you are a corporate executive of a company, a financial advisor and

a licensed public accountant. Everyday you go to work at the area hospital

but then one day on your way to work you discover the road and the signs

are difficult to see. In the months to follow you become completely blind.

Most people would be depressed and or devastated. Where would you turn and

how would you overcome this situation to continue on with your life?

This is what happened to Lisa Fittipaldi in 1993. She realized

over time that she would suffer from permanent blindness. The disorder

that she has is called optical neuritis. Optical neuritis cuts off the

blood supply to the optical nerves. This eliminates the path for visual

information to reach the brain. This degenerative vascular disease has

already taken the lives of her mother and brother. During the time

period after the discovery of the disease the doctors attempted surgery

which recovered her sight at that time. But, within forty-eight hours

the blindness has returned and never subsided again after that time.

The blindness allows Lisa to see the world, “like a television set with

bad reception”. She is able to see different levels of light and

darkness. If there is too much light Fittipaldi would get a migraine

but on the other hand if there is too little light it causes her to see

a snowstorm in front of her. Although she can make out movement it must

be within a few inches from her face (Blindartist).

She tried a couple of things to fight the depression that came

along with this discovery. Some of the activities that she tried to do

were pottery and sculpting; which turned out to be easy for Lisa. Her

depression continued with no prevails. Until one day her husband bought

her home a child’s set of watercolor paints. She began to paint with

the watercolor paints. Her first painting was of four-hour glasses with

one glass overlapping the other. The painting consists of vibrant

colors as with her later paintings.

She started by painting pans, squares and other simple objects.

When people began to tell her that she should be able to paint these

items because she was blind and these were simple items to paint. These

continuous comments from people only made her strive to paint more

elaborate paintings to prove everyone wrong. At this point she began to

paint animals and more realistic images. Her paintings include detailed

images of Paris streets, Indian dancers, elaborate still life scenes and

Balinese shadow puppets. Most of Lisa Fittipaldi’s work derived from

people telling her she could not do something.

Lisa began to paint even though people said to her, �blind people

cannot paint’. This only made her more determined over time to succeed.

Lisa Fittapaldi remembers, “I had not only lost my sight, but my

independence. Everytime I wanted to pick myself up and dust myself off,

someone said, �blind people cannot…’”. Through all the

negativity

around her, Lisa overcame her depression and developed herself into an

extremely well known and talented artist. She has sold more than four

hundred pieces of art and now receives up to $8,000 per canvas. She has

accomplished this is a little more than four years time (Blindartist).

Even though Lisa cannot see color, depth, dimension or print she

can feel the watercolor paints to tell what color it is. In an

interview she explained that when she feels the paints; she can tell

whether they are heavy or light and whether they have a texture to them

or not. For example she felt some paint and felt that it was light and

did not have a texture; she identified this as being light yellow. One

color was gritty and she knew that the color was red and it had some

brown in it. Whenever Lisa paints she tells what color it is by the

texture of the paint and she knows how much paint she is using by the

weight of the paintbrush.

Before she begins a canvas she gathers the paint and brushes

around the easel. She uses two palettes for painting. One of the

palettes is designated to flesh tone colors and the other palette is

used for the other colors. In order to keep the supplies in order for

Lisa; her husband checks to make sure the color tubes are in order; once

a month.

Lisa has received awards and been involved in art shows around the

world. Her first award was achieved in a local competition for the

visually handicapped. Today Fittipaldi’s art can be seen in various

museums and in private collections. She has been interviewed by the

press on television and by the print media. Her art is also displayed

internationally on a satellite television show called �Telemundo’. In

the United States her art has been seen on NBC’s �On the Porch’ and

on

�Rod Starne’s Journal’ and also on Fox on �Positively Texas’.

Lisa

Fittipaldi also has a gallery in Dallas that was filmed by NBC’s �Today

Show’. The �Austin American Statesman’ probably described

Lisa

Fittipaldi the best when they said, “Lisa Fittipaldi lost her vision but

not her determination to express herself artistically. How she paints,

however, may remain a mystery. It’s the question everybody asks and one

that confounds even her.