Carlisle Robinson

Carlisle Robinson's Exhibition

Image description: I am a white non-binary person with long brown hair. I am wearing glasses and a black shirt. Behind me is an artwork and a window. I am using American Sign Language (ASL).

Hello! My name is Carlisle Robinson. My sign name is made with an ‘L’ handshape. Then, bend your index finger. Finally, move it to a space in front of the eye / side of the head and move it up / down, as if you are moving glasses up and down.

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Welcome to my exhibition! I am really excited for us to show the journeys we, participants in the Sync residency, have embarked on. Each participant’s journey has inspired me to include their journeys in my artwork.

My journey began when we talked about what our leadership metaphor is. We were asked to choose one. After careful consideration, a metaphor popped into my mind! It is the Paper Birch tree. I will sign it like this (signing as if my left hand is a tree and my right hand is peeling the bark). The reason is that the Paper Birch Tree has peeling bark.

Image: Screen changes to photos of Paper Birch trees. They’re thin white trees with peeling bark. 

I picked it because I grew up with one in my backyard in Indiana. Also, that tree is famous for being used as paper by people in ancient times. People would engrave writings onto the bark. Several people practiced writing with it. 

The most famous example is the ones done by a little boy named Onfim. 

Image: Childish engravings of drawings of two people, with words next to them. 

Image: the actual paper birch that has faded from time, and the re-draw of his drawing on the birch. Onfim wrote, “I am a beast.” with a drawing of himself as a fictional fire breathing creature.

His drawings and writings still survive to this day, about 800 years later. Very cool, eh?

I also am on a journey to practice ASLwrite, a sign language writing system. It was introduced in the 2010s, but still has only a few users. It needs to be shared more! Not enough of us learn, practice, or regularly use it. I want to encourage more learners.

I thought about what helped me with reading and writing. You see, my first language is ASL. English is my second language. So, I read a lot of comics to help with my English. This is how I sign comics. (The sign looks like I am making comic panels on my hand).

Being a bookworm with comics has tremendously helped me improve my English. Comics are very accessible with visual storytelling combined with writing. Seeing actions in comics helped me to understand even unknown words.

I was naturally led to making a comic with the paper birch tree.

Here’s my process of creation. (I have never created art with the birch)

I tried pencils, markers, and even my grandma’s old clay tools, as they have sharp ends for engraving onto the bark. Some tools worked well, some did not. If you scroll down this page, you can see my progress with a bit more explanation.

Ultimately, I found that markers are the best. They show up very well on the birch. I can scratch / engrave into the bark with pencils or soft blunt tools. But I noticed that it is harder for people to see the drawings. Pencils give it a shiny sheen, and engravings sometimes don’t contrast well with the bark.

Also, the paper birch bark is very fragile. It is too easy to accidentally tear or break it. So I went with using markers.

As I shopped for materials, I decided on using black paper to see if I could play around with gluing the birch onto it. Originally, I intended to create a single artwork. But my creation process led me to create a comic!

So here’s the comic story! The working title is ‘Seeds’. I am not sure if I will go with that title. Perhaps I’ll still like it, or I’ll change it to something else. But for now, the title is ‘Seeds.’

The story has 8 panels.

The story talks about a child who was forcibly dragged into the forest by a woman. You’ll see that the woman is carrying a rope on her shoulder. What is her intention in taking the child into the forest?

I want to recognize that a long time ago… actually, some might still do this… when a disabled child was born, the family sometimes freaked out and didn’t want to keep the child. They’d dump the child into the mountains, or the forest. We need to recognize these horrible actions, this dark history.

We also see that there’s another child in a tree. We see that the dragged child and the woman are dressed in the late 1800s / early 1900s. The child in the tree is dressed like they’re from medieval times. Why? What does it mean? Perhaps the tree child is the spirit of the child who was thrown into the forest a long time ago? And their spirit continues to live on in the tree?

As the story progresses, we’ll see that both children experience a tragedy. But it ends with finding hope in resilience. This is a metaphor for many of us who are Deaf and/or disabled. We have gone through a long history of attempts to destroy us, drive us away, divide us into isolation, and deprive us of our equal rights to education and access. Despite that, we are still here, still stubborn, and still strong. We keep growing again and again. They cannot completely destroy us.

As the famous Deaf activist leader, George Veditz, once said, “As long as there are Deaf people, we will always have sign languages.” We should cherish sign languages, the languages that are 100% accessible to Deaf people.

And, with the last panel, I included the metaphors used by fellow Sync participants in our residency. Maybe you can find them?

So that’s the main artwork I did. I also have other miscellaneous small artwork and artwork that I created from playing around and experimenting.

So, enjoy!

Image Sources

Seeds

All comic panels were created on a black paper with illustrations in white marker. Several have actual paper birch tree barks cut out into trees and glued onto the black paper. These barks have black marker illustrations on them. Dialogues on the barks were engraved in ASLwrite. The images were modified using the Procreate App- I cleaned up and added leaves.

Click on images to enlarge.

Panel 1

A white line drawing on a black background of an angry woman dragging a young child away in the wood. On the right is a real piece of birch bark with a sketch of a young girl watching them leave.

A woman is dragging a long haired child by arm, walking through the forest. Both are dressed in late 1800s / early 1900s clothes. The woman is angry. She has a loop of rope on her shoulder. The child is crying and suddenly notices another child in the paper birch tree. The child in the tree is shocked to see the dragged child. This child is dressed in an older style, more of medieval style, with medium length hair.

Panel 2

A white line drawing on a black background and a piece of birch bark included in the background of an angry woman watching the young child escape her grip and reunite with her friend.

The medieval child says in the word balloon, engraved in ASLwrite, “Come!” The child has freed themself from the woman’s grip. They are jumping into the paper birch tree, grabbing the child in the tree’s hand. Both are overjoyed. The woman became more upset.

Panel 3

A white line drawing on a black background and a piece of birch bark included in the background of an angry woman watching the young children talk to each other. Thought bubbles are appearing above them.

The woman is banging on the tree. Children ignore her. They are signing to each other, smiling. In engraved ASLwrite, the newcomer child signs “Thank you thank you!” The medieval asks, “You deaf?” The newcomer replies, “Yes!”

Panel 4

A white line drawing on a black background and a piece of birch bark included in the background of an angry woman talking to a man holding a torch. The children are cowering in the woods.

The woman has beckoned over a man with a torch and is pointing to the tree, grinning. The tree behind the woman is shaped in a way that it makes the woman look like she has devil horns. The children see the man and are cuddled together. The medieval child places hand onto the bottom of the tree, opening up a hole, and says “Follow me!”

Panel 5

A white line drawing on a black background and a piece of birch bark included in the background. Image depicts the children falling into a whole at the base of a tree.

The medieval child has pulled the long haired child down under the tree, into a nest that is connected to the tree. We see the tree, undersoil, and roots. The tree is being burned. We see the legs of the man and the woman walking away.

Panel 6

A white line drawing on a black background and a piece of birch bark included in the background. Image depicts the children hiding in a hole underground. They are holding each other.

The children are hugging and cuddling, faces buried into each other. Aboveground, the entire forest is ablaze.

Panel 7

A white line drawing on a black background and a piece of birch bark included in the background. Image depicts the children hiding in a hole underground. Above them is a young tree sapling with a large leaf.

The newcomer child looks up, smiles, and points to the baby tree sprouting out of the roots, above them, with a single leaf. They are lifting up another child. We see other baby sprouts out of the ground as well, with their roots branched out and close to each other. We also see mushrooms and grass blades growing.

Panel 8

A white line drawing on a black background and a piece of birch bark included in the background. Image depicts the children standing at the base of a birch tree holding each other.They are in a woodland with mountain in the background.

The final panel reveals a landscape with trees grown into young trees with leaves. The children are hugging, facing away from us, and signing to each other “ILY” (I love you). We see a deer and a beaver. There is grassland again. A river is running through the trees. In the background, we see mountains and a sun, with birds flying in the sky. On the ground left of the children tree, we see plants imphepho and gladiolus. The entire image gives us a sense of resilience and hope.

Miscellanous works

Click the left and right arrows to see more images:

A black marker pen on birch bark of a person painting with a roller to reveal a person behind.
An experiment in using different layers of the bark. On the first layer, a person is painting over using a roller to make a white ‘wall.’ On the second layer, an artwork is partly painted over. It is a black marker with different signs- access, education, deaf, equal access, rights, and support.
A line drawing of a beast drawn onto birch bark. Also a drawing tool can be seen above.
A fanart of Onfim’s “I am a Beast” (see video at 2:22 minute mark). It is a photo of the bark along with a tool from my grandma’s tools for clay. It is an experiment and a practice in engraving on birch. The beast is a long necked fire breathing beast with four legs, pointy ears, and curled tail. There is a box with ASLwrite saying “I am a Beast.”
A drawing on birch bark of a giant feminine person is laying down, one arm wrapped around a birch tree.
An experiment with pencil on paper birch. I also peeled a layer to have a drawing on the back layer (which is light brown) while keeping the first layer (which is white) to be two birch trees. A giant feminine person is laying down, one arm wrapped around a birch tree. I’ve cut out a section of the tree to show her arm wrapping it.
A photo of a piece of birch bark with practice ASL writing on it. Above is a tool from clay sculpting tool.
A practice in writing ASLwrite on paper birch bark. It is a photo of the bark along with a tool from my grandma’s tools for clay. The writing features basic common handshapes of ASLwrite and an English alphabet in ASLwrite. If you are curious to see it clearly, you can see this PDF developed by Adrean Clark: http://www.aslwrite.com/free/ASLwriteSummary.pdf
A portrait of curly haired woman drawn onto birch bark. On the bottom is a person pulling back the layer to reveal the layer below also a tree with falling leaves using coloured pencils.
One of experiments with drawing paper birch bark. It is a mixture of engravings and pencil. There are two eyes on it. A portrait of curly haired woman. On the bottom, I played with a person pulling back the layer to reveal the layer below. On a layer below, I tried to draw a tree with falling leaves using coloured pencils. But colours barely show- all look brown, with faint red, orange, yellow, and green leaves.
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