By Chelsey Zumpano
Disclaimer: VIBlindResources nor Chelsey Zumpano do not own the art work in the video above. This is property of Matthew Gatewood and he owns all rights to this art! video description: a samurai dressed in black pance, a white shirt, and a sword hangs at his waist. He’s on a white mat doing different moves with his sword.
Matthew Gatewood is many things an artist, in high school he was a wrestler and on the football team, and he happens to also be legally blind.
He was born blind and when he was a baby, he had surgery to help correct some of the nystagmus, (which is uncontrolled eye movement).
He can see 22/100 in his right and 24/100 in his left eye. Also he has truble seeing contrast between colors such as Navy blue/black or really pill yellow/white.
Matthew grew up watching lots of cartoons and playing video games, but after a while he started to notice that they hardly ever had a person with a disability or if we were there we were side characters and our experiences were not completely captured. By drawing characters that are blind Matthew wants to teach kids to respect us and understand the challenges we face.
He started drawing when he was 10 and has been animating for seven years now and his favorite thing to draw is a blind samurai.
Matthew’s advice: “if there something you’d like to do, then go out there and do it!”
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