Thousands of people will feast their senses as they walk through the 37th Annual Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts this weekend. However, for some art fans, seeing and getting around isn't that easy.

Rick Bryant, visual arts director of the Arts Festival, said creating an environment that is accessible to those with physical disabilities and visual impairments is part of a cooperative effort by the Arts Festival, the State College Borough and Penn State.

Working with a variety of other organizations, they provide ample handicapped parking, guides for the visually impaired and maximum accessibility to the performances, food and art, Bryant said.

"We're very fortunate that the borough and Penn State are conscious of the needs of the physically challenged," he said.

Handicapped parking will be available in downtown garages and Beaver Stadium. The shuttle buses from Beaver Stadium are wheelchair accessible.

Festival Eyes, a program by the Sight-Loss Support Group of Central Pennsylvania (SLSG), aims to help anyone with sight loss to experience the festival with guidance by touch.

"We're the eyes of the festival," Rana Arnold, co-founder and director of SLSG and founder of Festival Eyes, said.

Arnold said the Festival Eyes program gives the visually impaired a chance to experience many visual arts presentations by emphasizing senses other than sight.

It is still possible to sign up for a guide until 2 p.m. today, but after that it is unlikely that a guide will be available, Arnold said.

Festival Eyes will guide the visually impaired through not only the Arts Festival but Feel the Art, a multisensory art gallery presented by the Arts and Health Outreach Initiative at Penn State (AHOI).

"The arts are critical to the health and well being of all people," Ermyn King, coordinator of AHOI, said.

King said the multi-sensory gallery is a way to promote creative literacy to improve the health of the community. It is part of a long-term initiative to introduce multi-sensory design into the community.

The Feel the Art exhibit, located in St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, 208 W. Foster Ave., includes 3-D representations of famous paintings by artists such as Van Gogh and Monet, as well as full-size models representing paintings in "living portrait" form such as "Whistler's Mother" and Van Gogh's "Self-Portrait."

The creators of the representation, students from Miami-Dade County Public Schools, used yarn, metal wire, pillows and other materials to create a tactile image.

For people with adequate vision, Feel the Art provides goggles that simulate vision loss of various degrees so they can experience the senses of touch, smell and sound with the absence of sight.

This exhibit will be available from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. daily during the Arts Festival.