A BLIND artist has created a piece of work which will be displayed in Hitchin for the duration of the town’s festival.

David Johnson’s sculpture, Too Big To Feel, was showcased for the first time on Windmill Hill on Friday.

The Hitchin artist, whose piece will be showcased every Friday for the rest of the month, wants to show that art is accessible for everyone.

The sculpture depicts very large Braille - too big too feel - but Mr Johnson, 56, will not divulge what it says.

But he did tell the Comet that it was one word - not rude or defamatory - which he found a little amusing.

“I wanted it to be a bit of a mystery,” said Mr Johnson on why he would not reveal the Braille’s meaning.

“It’s a word that’s about access to art for disabled people and the difference between art and non-art. It’s just a word that’s amusing.

“One lady recognised it as Braille, but I don’t think that anyone else noticed that.

“The irony is that even blind people couldn’t read it because it’s too big. That’s where the title came from.”

Mr Johnson, whose eyesight got progressively worse in his 20s until he went completely blind in his 30s, helps out disabled and blind people to access art and works with galleries and studios to make it easier for them to do so.

He has had his work showcased previously, including in a London gallery last year.

“This work is born out of thinking about how blind people can approach art,” he added.

“[When it was unveiled], the general reaction was uncertainty, people didn’t know what it was all about, which is exactly what I wanted.”