Some trends in the effort to make art accessible

I began the research component of this project some time ago, and in my exploration of the accommodations currently available to the visually impaired in American art institutions, I have discovered a variety of experimental services.  Having been to museums with my mother countless times since I was a child, I am familiar with the kind of issues she encounters while trying to interact with a museum exhibition along with the sighted public.  Being familiar with the specific problems she experiences in art museums as a blind "viewer," I can understand how the services currently being developed and already offered at some institutions came into being, and seem like somewhat logical solutions.  For example, every time we visit a museum together, I often end up describing the composition of artworks to my mother, who then uses my visual description and what she can make out with her limited vision to try to come to an understanding of the piece.  Often she will squint at the piece on the wall, using her finger to outline what she can see, remarking to me "Ah, I see a red blob over on the right side," or "I think I see a face, is this a portrait?"  Often, in the midst of my visual descriptions she will excitedly find a visual reference and exclaim "Oh! I see it! I get it!"  From these experiences with my mother I can understand exactly why extremely detailed auto description programs would be of assistance to the visually impaired visitors of a museum.  In fact a small number of museums either have specialized tours with extra visual description available, or in some cases allow their visually impaired patrons to use their general audio guides for free.
Another tool currently being tested in the field are tactile cards that attempt to translate the composition and palette of well-known pieces into a tactile experience.  This particular project I find to be more problematic.  Trying to reduce what is an entirely visual experience into a condensed, tactile version does not seem to me to be a real solution.  While braile works as a communication tool for the blind, it is an entirely new language that must be learned like a 2nd language.  Translating a visual experience into a tactile one that cannot embody nearly the amount of detail seems like a second-rate experience of the work.  While it could be helpful to people like my mother, who have a very limited amount of sight left, it does not replace the visual experience with one equally as meaningful.  That is where PLEASE TOUCH THE ARTWORK hopes to intervene.
As opposed to focusing on ways to replace the visual experience, or translate it from one sense to another, PLEASE TOUCH THE ARTWORK aims to put on display art works that operate within a multi-sensory vocabulary from the beginning, so nothing is lost in translation.