COLLECTION:
“All Barriers Crumble and Fall”
Medium unknown
Agatha Tiegel Hanson, first female valedictorian at Gallaudet University, delivered her landmark speech "The Intellect of Woman" in 1893. In her speech she examines the role of women and argues that society’s expectations of women are actually what limits her, not her natural intelligence. More than a hundred years later, we still face vestiges of the insurmountable barriers Agatha argued against. In this Art Deco-inspired artwork, two hands are held up in the ASL word for "sledgehammer." A crumbling stone wall in the background absorbs the impact of the hands. Agatha’s urging echoes in the written ASL at top right, translating to "This day women have many barriers. We must come together in support and tear them down!"
“Dandelions”
Medium unkown
Clayton Valli’s "Dandelions" ASL poem defined the genre and inspired countless ASL poets. In that poem, the seeds of a dandelion escape destruction -- a metaphor for ASL and the culturally Deaf community. In this picture I put the viewer in the place of a signer, to express the power and permanence of our language. The placard reads "dandelions" in written ASL, both reflecting Valli’s fingerspelling and signifying the importance of writing our language.
“The Intelligence Rule”
Painting
One of the most infamous symbols within the signing community is the common ruler. During the dark days of oral school in the mid-20th century, the ruler equated being whipped at the stake as students caught signing were subject to humiliation in front of their classmates.
It is an ugly scar across our community’s collective memory -- and continues to throb to this day as monolingual audists continue to measure children’s intelligence by their ability to speak and hear. All is not lost, though -- American Sign Language radiated through the children’s hands back then and continues to survive today despite the campaign to eradicate it.
“The New Waves”
Medium unknown
Every generation of Deaf children has the same enemy -- one that continually refreshes its mask. The Milan conference in 1880 was the spark to a cruel fire of oralism that continues to burn today under the assumed name of the Listening and Speaking Language approach. The worst part of today’s eagerness to implant deaf children and forbid signing is that it deprives children of their core need for communication. It is possible to transcend those battle lines by accepting ASL and other sign languages as natural languages, worthy of equal status to their spoken counterparts. In this artwork, the metal flames contrast with the warm, natural wood tones of the signing hands. The sharp metallic edges of the fire cut through and climb upwards, burning the underlying wood. It is not a new metal, rather, it is a battle-scarred, aged and dirty surface.
“Perseverance”
Medium unkown
The American Sign Language word that translates to the English word "persevere" blazes ahead to summit a mountain in this artwork. At the bottom is a quote by Wesley Lauritsen, a well-known Deaf man in the Minnesota Deaf community. It translates to "Good work is never lost."