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Living Paintings goes international on the Kelly Clarkson Show
28th February 2025
We were thrilled to receive the opportunity to appear on the Kelly Clarkson Show to discuss our Touch to See books, and the positive impact they have on blind and visually impaired children.
After discovering our work on Social Media, the Kelly Clarkson Show’s production team at NBCUniversal reached out and asked if we would like to appear on the ‘What I’m Liking’ segment, where Kelly highlights positive stories from around the world. Naturally, we were more than happy to oblige, and, as the biggest Kelly Clarkson fan among us, Nick, Head of Communications and Marketing, was the perfect choice for the job!
Nick’s hardly a stranger to the media world. As our resident social media whiz, Nick’s often behind the camera, but he’s rarely in front of it, making this a fantastically fun opportunity for him.
“Picture books are such an incredible resource,” he began. “The pictures need to work alongside the images, otherwise, kids cannot understand it properly. This is totally inaccessible for blind and visually impaired children.”
Nick then went on to discuss the process of making one of our Touch to See books, and the efforts of our incredible volunteers, who, for each and every book, attach the braille panels, carve the illustrations into wood, press a plastic sheet over top, and meticulously hand paint each raised illustration. That, as he rightly said, is where “all the magic happens.”
“But it’s not just the brilliant raised images that make a Living Paintings book so special. It’s the tactile audio format, which offers a descriptive experience for the reader to truly help them visualise what they are feeling, and we’ve been lucky enough to work with some extraordinary people: “Ethan Hawke did Where the Wild Things Are for us. Imelda Staunton is a great friend of ours, from Harry Potter and Downton Abbey, she’s done loads of stuff for us. It’s really nice to see that it’s capturing hearts and minds.”
After hearing Nick speak, Kelly let us in on a very special surprise. “It is insanely cool what you’re doing. Thank you so much, Nick. Our season-long partner, Pilot Pens, want to honour truly unstoppable people just like all of you at Living Paintings, so they’re writing you a cheque for $1,000!”
Nick’s ecstatic reaction said it all: kind donations, whether big or small, will go into making a difference in the lives of blind and visually impaired children.
We’ve had some truly wonderful and moving responses from blind and visually impaired people, and those who know them, in the time since the segment aired.
“This is one of the most amazing things I have seen in a very long time. My father, who is 84, has been blind since he was seven. I wished at the time he could have had something like this to help him, to help the teachers in our small town help him. Thank you for everything you do for the blind and visually impaired.”
We also heard from Carrie Ketchum, who sent us a lovely handwritten letter from California and said this: “Thank you for expanding the world for blind and visually impaired people. It was a great joy to tune into the Kelly Clarkson show and see Nick talking about the wonderful and creative work you’re doing! Keep it going; I know the recipients of your books will surely appreciate it.”
Thank you so much to the Kelly Clarkson show for giving us a platform to highlight the work we do for blind and visually impaired children, and to sponsors Pilot Pens for the generous $1,000 donation, which will go towards making the impossible possible for blind and visually impaired children. And well done to Nick for speaking with passion and gusto, and doing us all at Living Paintings proud.
To see our full range of incredible Touch to See books for yourself, you can visit our library. To experience first-hand the magic of a Living Paintings Touch to See book, you can join our library here.