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Wordgathering, a quarterly online journal of disability and poetry, is interested in poetry and other creative work by writers with disabilities or about disability. It also reviews relevant books of poetry. New writers welcome. See guidelines at http://www.wordgathering.com/ or contact at submissions@wordgathering.com.

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VIVA DeVIA TOUR GUIDE
Patti Durr
Words: 628
[Art Review]

Sonic Chromatic Exhibit: Making the Invisible Visible

A critical part of the Harlem Renaissance artists' and literary giants' genius was finding patrons who could support them or help make their works visible to the greater public. While African-Americans were making visual art, poetry, essays, plays, music, etc., long before the Harlem Renaissance, it flourished largely because patrons made their work visible to the larger public.

Deaf View / Image Art (De'VIA) has long been in need of patrons to give it the boost to break through in the art world. Many Deaf and Hearing artists, leaders, and scholars have widely disseminated information about De'VIA but not until recently have a non-Deaf-related gallery or organization taken unprompted interest in the works of Deaf and hard-of-hearing artists.

This is why the Sonic Chromatic: Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing Artists Show at Tamarind Art was received so well by the Deaf community. This show featured 10 Deaf artists: Jenamarie Bacot, Robin Batholick, Randy Dunham, Patti Durr, John Fitzsimmons, Randy Garber, Leon Lim, Tracey Salaway, Robin Taylor, and Charles Wildbank. It ran from the fully attended opening on May 27 till the June 26 closing presentation by Dr. Rusty Rosen and panel discussion led by Tabitha Jacques with Robin Taylor, Charles Wildbank, and Patti Durr discussing their works.

(Pictured from left to right: Patti Durr, Robin Taylor, Charles Wildbank, Leon Lim, Randy Garber, Randy Dunham, Marguerite Charugundla and Kent Charugundla [Founders of Tamarind Art Gallery], Jenamarie Bacot, Tracey Salaway. Absent: John Fitzsimmons and Robin Bartholick.)

The artworks featured in the show can be seen at: http://www.tamarindarts.org/Exhibitions/2009/04_SonicChromatic/main.aspx. Use the inside scroll bar to see the complete exhibit of 24 artworks ranging from photography and digital imaging, paintings, mixed media, installations, video, sculpture, and printmaking. Tamarind Art also published a catalogue of the show with essays reviewing the works exhibited, by Deaf authors Tabitha Jacques, Raymond Luczak, and Emmanuel Shawn.

Since the De'VIA manifesto specifies the importance of the artists' intentionality in representing and/or expressing the Deaf experience, only five of the artists in the Sonic Chromatic show self-identified their works as reflecting the Deaf perspective or physical experience: Charles Wildbank's triptych "Freedom," "Knowledge," and "Love," Randy Garber's "Pick of the Litter" and "One Way or Another," Patti Durr's " . . . And there was light" and "Repressive Means," Tracey Salaway's "Perceptual Minds: A Series of Stories" and "A Modern World of 'Distributed' Habitat: Seed Heads 1 & 2" and Robin Taylor's "Avenue of Loss" and "Trapped."

While the other artists did not self-disclose an intention to represent or explore the Deaf experience specifically within their works, several attendees at the opening reception and closing were seen imposing their own interpretation and a Deaf view onto the works. This is the beauty of art; it invites interpretation and meaning from the viewer beyond what the artist may have intended.

Tamarind Art gallery founder and co-chair, Marguerite Charugundla states, "My ongoing endeavors to reach out to unchartered territories have led me to representing artists who concern themselves in the realization of work dealing with issues reflecting contemporary society's concerns and documenting today's reality . . . Recently, I have become more familiar with a specific culture that exists in the art world -- work created by artists who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing. This community of artists is present throughout the world, yet is often over looked by the public." (catalogue, p. II) Charugundla stated that Tamarind had received hundreds of artworks by Deaf and Hard of Hearing artists to review for consideration when establishing this first show and looks forward to receiving new works and artists for their next call of submission.

Kudos to Marguerite and Kent Charugundla for founding Tamarind, and for serving as patrons of Deaf-made artistic expressions. Hopefully as one observer stated, "This is just the beginning of bigger things to come." De'VIA artists, please get busy making more works giving visual testimony to the Deaf experience!

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Patti Durr teaches in the Department of Cultural and Creative Studies at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.

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