I was reading a book, “Deaf Artists in America: Colonial to Contemporary,” which features selections of Deaf artists throughout history of USA. One thing stood out to me was that in artwork in 1800s, Deaf artists often featured Deaf people with book or paper or pen.
My favourite is Augustus Fuller’s 1840 portraits of his Deaf school classmates, Elizabeth Stone Denny and Edwards Denny. Elizabeth is holding a book and a pen. Edwards is holding a pen. It is a way to say to the world, “Hey, we are educated and we can communicate.”
They went to the very first deaf school in North America, the American School for the Deaf. Augustus started the school only 7 years after the school was founded. He could’ve gone to school in Massachusetts but the deaf school was not established until 1868. Even better, he could’ve gone to one much closer his home. But that school, where I worked as a teacher aide, was not established until 1970.
Despite having lived for 10 years total in New England area, mostly in Massachusetts, I have never heard of this artist Augustus until last week.
How many more Deaf and disabled artists were lost in the history? How many had their disability erased or overlooked by the arts world?
But I will treasure any fragments of the Deaf and disability arts history. To me, I am warmed that, 185 years after the Augustus painting, we Deaf people still use paper / pen to communicate. Sure, using phones / computers are cool. But if we want to quickly communicate back / forth, paper and pen are still better. Sometimes, simpler things are better.
