Category Archives: creative work

Recommended Reading: Comics and Graphic Novels

creative work, gender, happy posts, , , ,

As some of you may know, I am a cartoonist and graphic novel fan in addition to my regular duties blogging here at FWD. While I don’t get the “HEY ANNAHAM WHAT COMICS AND STUFF DO YOU LIKE TO READ?” query too often, I thought it might be useful to give an overview of graphic work that I think FWD readers and commenters might enjoy. Many of my recs have to do with illness and disability; a few, however, don’t. I’m always working on a new cartoon of some sort (mostly single-panel or multiple pages), and want to share the fruits of my research with folks who may want to read graphic novels, but have no clue where to start. Alternatively, some of these might make useful gifts for the holidays, either for the comics fan in your life or for yourself!

Lynda Barry: This woman is pretty much my hero. Although Barry has a background in art, her work shows that you don’t have to draw comics “realistically” for them to have an impact, or for the artwork to be strikingly beautiful. I probably would have stopped drawing autobiographical cartoons long ago were it not for her work; I do not have much artistic training to speak of, and there seems to be a widespread misconception that only “trained” artists can draw cartoons worth reading! While Barry does not address disability in her cartoons, many of her colorful slice-of-life strips bring readers back to the confusing and bizarre world of childhood and adolescence. If you were — or are — a “weird kid,” you will absolutely connect with Barry’s comics. Her 2008 creativity manual-slash-collage dreamworld What It Is may be particularly useful for the artists (or wannabe-artists), or indeed anyone who needs a push to start writing and creating; a follow-up, The Near-Sighted Monkey Book, was recently released. For those not familiar with her work, I recommend The Greatest of Marlys (a compilation of her long-running alternative comic strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek) and the autobiographical collection One! Hundred! Demons! to start, followed by What It Is; for those of you who like darker material involving (fictional) teenaged misadventures, drug use, and general weirdness, her illustrated novel Cruddy is a must-read.

Alison Bechdel, Fun Home (2006): Known primarily as the writer and illustrator of the alternative comic Dykes to Watch Out For (also worth checking out!), Bechdel really hits her stride with this lengthier autobiographical tale of family drama, the tensions between appearances and reality, destructive secrets, and sexual awakening. I could provide a synopsis, such as “This is a story about the writer’s complex relationship with her father,” but it is so much more than that. This is one of those books that I want to recommend to everyone who enjoys reading; it’s a work that rewards the time put into it tenfold. I get something new out of it every time I re-read it. The way that Bechdel draws facial expressions is nothing short of priceless, and the narrative as a whole is consistently amazing, complex, and intense.

Al Davison, The Spiral Cage (1989): This one can be sort of hard to track down, but: it’s very much worth the effort. Davison has spina bifida, and this graphic novel chronicles his life with both that condition and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E. The result — with its many nods to surrealism, and interesting explorations of masculinity and disability, as well as spirituality — is an honest, beatifully written and illustrated look at life with multiple disabilities.

Rantz Hoseley (editor) et al., Comic Book Tattoo (2008): Do you like (or love) Tori Amos’ music? Do you enjoy comics? If so, this is probably an anthology that you will get lost in for a couple of days. I was way, way into Tori’s music before I discovered comics and graphic novels, and the amazing range of this anthology — a collection of short graphic works and interpretations inspired by the singer’s massive back-catalog — makes it worth a look. For a compendium with such a huge variety of artistic styles and song interpretations, this collection has very few duds, and the overall quality of the stories included makes it worth the $30 price tag. This is not an anthology that you will read only once and then shove it onto the bookshelf to collect dust, in other words.

Harvey Pekar and Joyce Brabner (with illustrations by Frank Stack), Our Cancer Year (1994): Comics writer Harvey Pekar (he died earlier this year) was known as the cranky protagonist of American Splendor, but this collaboration with his wife, peace activist and journalist Joyce Brabner, brings illness and disability into the mix, and the result is positively great. Although the Pekar-Brabner-Stack team do not gloss over the realities of cancer at all — there are ample panels, and pages, that show the gruesome, life-altering effects of testicular cancer and its harsh treatment protocol — one does not get the sense that showing the worst aspects of this disease is for shock value. As Pekar and Brabner assert at the start of Our Cancer Year, this graphic novel is not just about cancer — it is also about partnership, the everyday (or not-so-everyday), and life.

David Small, Stitches (2009): For a full-length graphic work that doesn’t use much text or dialogue, this is certainly an astonishing piece. Small, who is a children’s book illustrator, utilizes his unique artistic style for this memoir, which tells the affecting tale of his battle against cancer — and near-fatal family secrets — starting when he was 11 years old. Small’s success at creating an overarching mood in this book is difficult to describe; all of the seemingly small choices that he makes as an author and illustrator here add up to a memoir that is both harrowing and ultimately life-affirming. In a review of Stitches for PopMatters, writer Sean Ferrell comments that “[the] book does not exemplify rising above, it exemplifies the continuing, life-long struggle to release the toxic histories we drag around with us.” It is truly to Small’s credit that he has used such painful past experiences to create an unforgettable work.

Commenters, what are some of your favorite comics and graphic works?

Recommended Reading for 10 December, 2010

accessibility, creative work, medical practice, recommended reading, work, , , , , , , ,

Well, if it isn’t Friday again. I suppose it is for you, readers of the future, but I am writing this from Tuesday, in the past! Such is the power of the blog’s scheduling function.

Gentle reader, be cautioned: comments sections on mainstream media sites tend to not be safe and we here at FWD/Forward don’t necessarily endorse all the opinions in these pieces. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

An Actor Finds Truth & Power Negotiating her Vision Loss by Marilee Talkington guest posting at Brains of Minerva.

So I decided I wouldn’t tell the directors or anyone on the casting end that I was visually impaired. Which always felt like a betrayal. And I would show up as early as I needed to to re-write the entire script by hand in large print.  I hadn’t learned how to vocally advocate for myself yet in a way that didn’t feel angry or demanding, so at times I flat out lied. I remember calling an audition hotline once using a different name and asked if someone who was visually impaired could get the script ahead of time to memorize.  I was told that they couldn’t because it would pose an unfair advantage over the other actors.

Why CART in Government? by Martha Galindo at CCAC In Action:

1. Good government leads the way for all its citizens by setting best standards for equality and inclusion.

2. To reduce discriminatory gaps which now still exclude many able citizens (who happen to be deaf, deafened, or have a hearing loss, or who need quality text for many other good reasons) from regular and important government meetings, workshops, rallies, advisory committees, and public input to city, state, or federal bodies.

Lene Anderson at The Seated View: Disability Time

So there I am, sitting in the waiting room a full hour and half before my appointment and although I had a book, I was annoyed, so instead I started thinking about Disability Time. You don’t find it mentioned much in Google in the way it’s used in the disability world, but maybe some day, it’ll make its way into search engines. Disability Time refers to the way in which most things take much longer when you have a disability. There is personal Disability Time, as in it probably takes me double the time to make a cup of hot water in the microwave that it would you and then there is the Disability Time that’s imposed by others and there are a couple of those.

Donna Jodham: Out of sight out of mind

A few months ago I had a meeting with some officials of a financial institute to discuss making more financial planning services available to blind and sight impaired persons and at that time I raised the issue of making information available in alternate formats such as Braille, large print, and electronic text. To my chagrin but not to my surprise, the officials admitted that they had never thought of doing so. I also had a similar meeting with a major supermarket chain in Toronto to discuss making their weekly specials more available to their blind and sight impaired customers either online or through a phone service and again, I was told that this had not been thought of up until now.

Claudia Dreyfus for the New York Times: A conversation with Julian L. Seifter, Nephrologist and Patient. It’s an interesting interview with a physician, Dr. Julian Seifter, who just cowrote a book on living with chronic illness.

Q. Has being a patient helped you be a doctor?
A. I’ve certainly learned things I’ve brought back to the clinic. I have a retinopathy, for instance, which can be a complication of diabetes. I don’t have good vision in my right eye, as a result. When this first happened, I said to my ophthalmologist, “I can’t lose vision. I need to read.” And he said, “Any vision is better than no vision.”
That was important. I started thinking, “Concentrate on things you still can do and develop some new things.” I’ve since started gardening, which doesn’t require the most acute vision. It’s something I probably wouldn’t have done otherwise. I counsel my patients to replace what they’ve lost with something new.

Send your links to recreading[@]disabledfeminists[.]com. Let us know if/how you want to be credited. And have yourself a fabulous weekend.

Things That Make My Life/Art Easier: Pens

comics, creative work, media and pop culture, , , , ,

As s.e. wrote about in a post earlier this week, I am a cartoonist in addition to all the other crap that I do. I’ve been drawing (and writing) for most of my life, and finding the perfect pen has been something of a wild turkey-chase with mixed results. I know that an entire post devoted to pens may seem silly, particularly given the more serious things that I have written about here on FWD. Re-reading some of Amanda‘s Things That Make My Life Easier posts has inspired me to write about…well, writing (and drawing) implements, because the right ones do make things easier for me.

I first read about the pain-reducing benefits of felt-tip pens in the second edition of Starlanyl and Copeland’s Fibromyalgia and Chronic Myofascial Pain: A Survival Manual; the authors, both medical professionals, include the use of felt-tip pens in a lengthy list of tips designed to reduce pain on an everyday basis. Felt-tip pens tend to be easier on the hands and joints. My one huge issue with felt-tips, however, is that many of them produce stronger lines than I would like. This is more of a problem when I attempt to use them for artistic purposes, as I don’t mind a little more heft in my hand-written notes and scribbles. I do use felt-tips on occasion in my cartoon work — especially for panel borders and heavy lines — just not very often.

Felt-tips are good for writing, but depending upon what sort of lines you’d like in your artistic works, the ease of use that felt-tips produce may be their only advantage. Obviously, they’re not the greatest for detail work. I tend to shy away from brushes and pens that require the use of an inkwell or a separate bottle of ink, as the gorgeous lines one can produce with those tools so often translates into absolute hell on my hand and wrist joints, plus a lot of repetitive motion from dipping the brush or pen into the ink and bringing it back to the page (which often equals further hell).

Ball-point pens that don’t have a lot of ink “flow,” in my experience, aren’t great for cartooning either, though they can be useful for storyboards and quick sketches. The ball-points that have worked the most effectively for me have been the “business”-type pens that most folks associate with actual business work. Perhaps people in business have to write things quickly and therefore cannot depend on crappy ball-points and/or face the frustration that inevitably arises when said crappy ball-point runs out of ink. Non-crappy ball points, such as the Uni-ball line of products, may be a bit more expensive than “traditional” ball-points, but if you want a smooth line that is not going to translate into extreme wrist or hand pain, a “business” pen of this sort might be for you.

Another pen type with which I have had some success has been actual drawing pens; many brands are available at art-supply stores or bookstores. I have found that experimentation with different types of pens is a good bet, if you’ve got the time for it (and assuming that you are cool with dropping a couple bucks on pens that might be either awesome or a total disaster). The Preppy fountain pen, made by Japan’s JetPens, may be a good bet for people who would like to experiment with fountain pens and the lines that these pens can create, but who may not have the time, energy or inclination to use a more traditional fountain pen (it has a reloadable ink-cartridge system that is very convenient). There is also the Stabilo brand, which I discovered quite by accident in the clearance rack of an art supply store (I bought a couple specifically because they were on sale). I use the Point 88 type because it’s light, comfortable to hold and can do excellent detail work, but your artistic/writing mileage may vary.

There is no “perfect” pen, of course, but there are some damn good ones out there if you’ve got the inclination to experiment.

Question Time: Creativity

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Question Time is a series in which we open the floor up to you, commenters. We invite you to share as you feel comfortable.

Do you do any creative things (artwork, web design, creative writing, photography, playing a musical instrument or instruments, crafts, knitting) for fun? If so, what are they, and what do you enjoy about them? Please feel free to share links if you have them!

Alternately, are there any creative things, works, or folks that you’ve been inspired by as of late [please warn for TV show/movie/book spoilers in comments]?

The Inner Critic

art, bad advice, creative work, mental health, , , , , , ,

[Warning for possibly triggering content regarding mental health, specifically depression.]

I’ve been reading a fair number of how-to creativity books (yeah, I know, creativity is not something you can “learn” from a book) recently in preparation for a long-term project, and one thing I have noticed about some of these books–and a lot of the “advice” floating around out there about creativity–is the notion of the “inner critic.” The inner critic, according to some Professional Creative Types, is the voice that tells you that you are not creative, that you can’t write, or draw, or paint, or accomplish whatever creative project you want to. The inner critic is supposed to stand in for everyone who’s told you that you are a crappy artist, that your creative pursuits aren’t good enough, and all of that fun stuff that apparently wasn’t there when you were a kid. And, in the course of becoming truly creative, you are supposed to silence your inner critic.

This got me thinking, however: What if that critic was there when you were a kid? What if the inner critic is, well, part of you, and you cannot “just silence” that part?

One thing that I really don’t talk about publicly (on the internet or off) is my history of major depression. There are many reasons as to why, and I think that those might best be saved for another post. However, there is something that really bugs me about the “inner critic” model of creativity: it does not take depression, anxiety, or other mental health conditions into account. What if that voice in your head has been there for a while, and is an active part of your mental health issue? It’s not so easy to turn off that voice that tells you that you suck, or that your art or writing is a bunch of crap, or that you will never amount to anything when that voice is there because of a mental health condition.

There’s another assumption in writings about the importance of “turning off” the inner critic, which is that all children have a magical reserve of resilience and that is why they are so creative. These children simply don’t care what anyone else thinks, and the Creative Adult must recapture that sense of adventure by silencing the inner critic! It sounds so easy! But what of the depressed child, or the child with mental health issues? As someone who had depression issues as a kid — and still does — I question the supposedly “universal” applicability of this whole inner critic business, the assumption that it can be turned off like a damn light switch, after which we will all Recover Our Childlike Capacity For Creativity, or something.

I remember having my own Inner Critic as a kid, and it was not fun. Certainly, I did have years where I had that sense of Childlike Creativity and Wonder, but those were also interlaced by a voice in the back of my mind that would tell me awful things. And it never left, after a while. It would hiss: You do not belong. You are weak. Your bum leg is punishment for something, and you sure as hell aren’t going to “make up for it” with your stupid cartoons, give me a break! You think you’re going to be popular because of your cartoons? Because of your writing? Please. You are worthless, and also none of the other kids like you. Your art is just a hobby, nothing more.

Then, once the depression came on the scene, those little hissings became, well, much bigger. They’d been there when I was a kid, no doubt, but with major depression, they stuck in my brain like a particularly awful tape loop that just couldn’t be turned off. Things with my depression are much better now — as they have been for a few years — but I am always, always on the alert in case it comes back full-force. My depression not totally gone (nor do I expect it to be), but I manage it with care. And the “inner critic” that artsy self-help types slam? She’s still there, and I think she will be there permanently. The trick, for me, is learning to live with her instead of assuming that silencing her is an easy step.

Crowdsourcing: Graphic novels! edition

art, books, creative work, media and pop culture, meta, , , ,

Here’s the scoop: Despite the fact that I am sort of a cartoonist and “into” graphic art, I am, sadly, not totally on the up-and-up when it comes to comics and graphic novels! So, I need recommendations from you fine FWD commenters for a project that I will be starting on rather soon. I am mostly looking for autobiographical comic/graphic novels, comics/graphic novels having to do with illness or disability, race, and/or gender and sexuality (I prefer non-fiction for these categories),  and comics/graphic novels that cover awkward situations in childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood (fictional or not).  Also, how-to books (such as Eisner’s Comics and Sequential Art, which I already own and have dog-earred to infinity) are also welcome as suggestions, as I will definitely need inspiration.

Here’s a list of stuff I already have that is in one or more of the above categories: One! Hundred! Demons! (Barry, 2002); Fun Home (Bechdel, 2006); Funny Misshapen Body (Brown, 2002); The Spiral Cage (Davison, 1992); Cancer Made Me a Shallower Person (Engelberg, 2008); Jokes and the Unconscious (Gottleib and DiMassa, 2006) Stitches (Small, 2009), American Born Chinese (Yang, 2006) [thank you to my fellow blogger Anna for reminding me of this one].

PLEASE, SUGGEST AWAY!

[Cross-posted to ham blog in a slightly different form]

Damn Y’all White Wolf

accessibility, creative work, i'm right here, intersectionality, language, othering, representations, social attitudes, , , ,

My [biggest] fandom is White Wolf’s Exalted. I’ve complained about it before and I’ll complain about it again.

I build characters because it’s fun and I often spend a lot of time working at it trying to make a person rather than a collection of attributes. Right now I’m working on a character who I actually have an expectation of playing and as ever I’m borrowing much from my life and some from various other places. This person is a rabbit (specifically this rabbit) shapeshifter with a very big hammer. Ou has told me ou doesn’t speak and I try to listen to my characters when they tell me things.

Also disabled folk can damn well be heroes. They don’t have to ‘overcome’ their conditions neither. I will try to not fuck this up too badly. Transient dysphasia and aphasia are conditions I have personal experience with but not full-time.

Thing is: Because I’m making a new character I’m taking an enormous hit on experience and power — the character I’ve been playing has more than twice as many experience points as the GM is giving me for my rabbit person. Ouch. (But I’m getting to tell a new story.) So I may do something I’m not entirely comfortable with: Use the Flaw system built into the game.

See, you can get points to buy Cool Shit by taking Flaws. Some of them are okay, like being wanted by authorities or being widely known as a demon or whatever. Some of them are more problematic, like missing body parts, mental illnesses, communication and sensory impairments.

Here’s the one for not speaking:

Mute
Cost: 1 pt. or 4 pts.
Your character is unable to speak normally. For one bonus point, the character is simply unable to speak above a whisper, while complete dumbness[1. Hi there, dumb means does not speak! I have not missed you.] grants four bonus points. A character with the one-point version automatically fails all Performance or Presence checks that require public speaking but faces no penalty on social attacks as long as his target can hear him, which requires the target’s player to succeed on a (Perception + Awareness) roll at difficulty 2.

A character with the four-point version of the Flaw automatically fails all Performance or Presence checks based on verbal communication and suffers a -5 penalty on all social attack rolls made for her unless the attack expressly has no verbal component. While there is no universal sign language in the Age of Sorrows, the character and her allies can communicate through an informal sign language if each of them commits one Linguistics slot to it.

Just kind of as an aside they tell us there are no widely-known gestural or tactile languages. None. There aren’t regional languages even. Anyone wanting to use one has to make up their own and teach it to whomever they want to communicate with. Deaf people wanting to build a community are going to have a tricky time of it in canon Exalted.

Sometimes I hate my game. I could use those four bonus points but that’s some horrible shit. But not using this mechanic isn’t going to make it disappear from the game either (there’s another player whose character made use of it — as a hot blind assassin chick). The casual disablism is not exactly unusual for gaming (and this isn’t even the worst example of disablism ((or casual bigotry)) I could pull from Exalted) where currently non-disabled developers assume a currently non-disabled audience and write accordingly. Because heroes are CND or super-crip amirite?

So yeah. I’ll probably do it. I’ll just feel icky about it. :(

Cross-posted: Aperiodically Legible.

Disability-Centered Writing Wanted!

creative work, media and pop culture, representations, signal boost

Redstone Science Fiction is running a contest!

Towards an Accessible Future

Redstone Science Fiction is calling for contest submissions that incorporate the values discussed in the essay The Future Imperfect by Sarah Einstein.

What does a world, or space station, or whatever look like when it has been designed to be accessible to everyone and how would people live together there?

The submissions should portray disability as a simple fact, not as something to be overcome or something to explain why a character is evil. The submissions should also incorporate the portrayal of disability in a world where universal access is a shared cultural value.

Check out all the details!

AND!

Popular Genres and Disability Representation

Romance novel or western, detective serial or horror film, the genre of a text affects how we “read” it, including our understanding of disabled characters. Genre forms may impose constraints upon the creators of texts, such as a particular setting or narrative structure, but they may equally open up new possibilities for representation. In science fiction, for example, new technologies, alien bodies, and alternative environments can challenge understandings of what constitutes disability or impairment. Michael Bérubé speculates that the genre is “as obsessed with disability as it is with space travel and alien contact.” What opportunities (and what constraints) might science fiction present, then, with regards to disability representation? More generally, how do the structures and conventions of genre forms, such as the need for heroine and hero to be united in romance, affect the representation of disability?

This special issue of JLCDS will explore the interplay of genre and disability with a focus on popular genre texts, whether in fiction, film, television, or other media. Submissions might consider representations of disability in particular texts or authors, in specific genres, or in mainstream texts that enter into dialogue with genre; alternatively, they might examine disability theory in relation to genre theory, or the role of fan communities. This list is not exhaustive, so submissions on other topics related to disability and genre are very welcome.

Get all the details!

Recommended Reading for May 18, 2010

autonomy, bodies, class issues, creative work, gender, identity, invisibility, politics, recommended reading, shaming, social attitudes, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Pharaoh Katt at Something More Than Sides: I Dreamed That I Was Normal

I dreamed the world made sense,
That people never tried
To delve into my psyche and redefine my mind.

Gauntlet at Tumblr: Janet Street-Porter shares her thoughts on depression…

I think maybe what we are seeing here, is women who have a powerful voice in the media through their personal fame or newspaper column, sharing their experience in a way that will hopefully help to normalise the experience of mental health problems and help reduce stigma.

telesilla: 3W4DW — Day ???

I don’t need to explain to anyone why I’m on government assistance, because you know what? It’s none of anyone’s damn business.

Brendan Borrell (Los Angeles Times): Pro/Con: Time to reexamine bipolar diagnosis in children?

In a draft of the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — the American Psychiatric Association’s bible — a new label, temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria, is proposed for these behaviors instead. Unlike bipolar disorder, the new label doesn’t specify that the disorder is a lifelong condition.

De’VIA

creative work, disability activism, identity, language, , , , ,

As I repeatedly told anyone who would listen to me, last weekend I went to a conference in Toronto. While there, I visited Toronto’s Deaf Culture Centre. [1. Little-d deafness is the “medical” condition of not being able to hear, or hearing very little. Big-d Deafness is being a member of a cultural & linguistic minority that uses Sign Language. In English Canada, this is typically American Sign Language, although there are other Sign Languages used here.]

One of the exhibits at the Deaf Culture Centre was about De’VIA – Deaf View Image Art – which “specifically reflects Deaf experience and Deaf Culture.”

I’m still learning about De’VIA, as my particular studies are in nineteenth century d/Deafness. What I like about what I’ve seen is looking at art that is not only explicitly political, but is explicitly about being Deaf. In Toronto, the current exhibit is paintings of Sign Language.

As a Hearing person, I don’t want to talk too much about Deaf artists and De’VIA. Instead, for people not familiar with it, I’d like to show you some very iconic De’VIA images, and then direct you to some websites where Deaf Artists are writing about their work.

This first piece is by Ann Silver, called Deaf Identity Crayons: Then and Now.

A description follows this image
The image is of two crayon boxes. One is done in sepia tones, with “Deaf Identity Crayons” written across in an ‘old-time’ script. The crayons each have a label: Dummy; Lip Reader; Deaf & Dumb; Handicapped; Oralist; Deaf-Mute; Freak. The second box looks like the iconic Crayola-crayon box, with “Deaf Identity Crayons” written across the front. The crayons are CODA; Seeing; Deaf-Blind; Late-Deafened; Deaf American; Hard of Hearing; Signer; Deaf.

(Oralism is the techniques used to teach Deaf people to talk. CODA is Children of Deaf Adults.)

Silver’s biography is available on the Deaf Art website, but I especially love her description of her art:

My language of art has, over the years, metamorphosed from pictorial grammar to creativity and critical thinking. I turn to art (1) as an artistic expression of the Deaf Experience—i.e., culture, language, identity and heritage; (2) as a Zen meditation and an aesthetic recreation of the contemplative state in which it allows my thoughts to drift by without grasping at them; (3) as an emergency back-up whenever the English language gives me semantic anxiety; 94) as an academic study vis-à-vis Deaf Studies; and (5) as a visual weapon to deal with polemical issues and concerns such as stereotyping, inaccessibility, paternalism, inequality and discrimination on the basis of hearing status (a.k.a. audism)

Another very popular piece is this one, by Betty G. Miller, called The ASL Flag:

Description follows
Description: This is a diptych, and the two canvasses come together to show a waving flag much like the United States flag. Instead of stars again the blue square, it shows 28 white hands Signing. Between the red and white stripes of the flat, it has the following:
Oh can’t you seeee…. by dawn’s early light
what proudly…. we Deaf wave at visual beauty
we see in sign language burst in air…
no matter people hearing stare…
show proof that… Deaf and ASL still here…
oh why Deaf people opressed?
over the land of the free…. and the home of the brave…??

Again, I like Betty’s bio, but I will highlight this portion:

When asked to explain the values behind her work, Dr. Miller replied:

“Much of my work depicts the Deaf experience expressed in the most appropriate form of communication: visual art. I present the suppression, and the beauty, of Deaf Culture and American Sign Language as I see it, both in the past, and in the present. Oppression of Deaf people by hearing is actually cultural, educational, and political. Another aspect of my work shows the beauty of Deaf culture. I hope this work, and the understanding that may arise from this visual expression, will help bridge the gap between the Deaf world, and the hearing world.”

You can see images of Betty’s work, and perhaps buy a t-shirt or similar article with images on it, at Betty Gee’s cafe-press store.

I won’t say too much else here, except to link to discussions about De’VIA elsewhere.

Betty Gee’s website
Deaf Art, Deaf Artists
Deaf Culture – Deaf Art on About.Com
Deaf History Through Art – De’VIA revisited after 15 years!
Deaf Art.org