Art Genres and Movements

Deaf artists have a long history. This is to be expected given the visual nature of Deaf people and the fact that many Deaf children use forms of visual expression, such as drawing, as a primary means of communicating and expressing themselves with the nonsigning people around them. The first known attempt by a group of Deaf artists in the United States to depict American Sign Language (ASL) in visual art was the Deaf artists movement in the mid-1960s. The group included Gallaudet art students Betty G. Miller, most notably, Ann Silver, and Harry Williams. In 1972, Miller had a one-woman show entitled The Silent World, in which she exhibited many resistance and affirmation pieces.

Later, in the mid-1970s, Spectrum: Focus on Deaf Artists, a Deaf artists’ colony in Austin, Texas, was established. It was begun by a hearing arts educator, Janette Norman, and was funded largely by a wealthy philanthropist, Helen DeVitt Jones. Miller and Clarence Russell purchased an old ranch property, and Spectrum began year-round operations with special summer festivals. The festival provided workshops for adult Deaf artists, performers, and poets as well as a program for Deaf children and their families. Charles McKinney, Chuck Baird, Dorothy Miles, Elizabeth Quinn, Liz Baird, Susan Jackson, Sandi Inches, and many other Deaf actors, poets, artists, and writers were involved in this artists’ colony. Spectrum covered visual art, dance, performing arts, literary arts, and even video production. It also served as a clearinghouse to assist in networking and information sharing among Deaf artists and performers across the United States. In addition, Spectrum published and distributed a newsletter regularly, which even featured a column written in American Sign Language (ASL) gloss.

When the funding support dissipated, Spectrum was dissolved, but the seed had been planted. The idea that there should be a name for art about the Deaf experience, and greater efforts to conceptualize it, began to ferment. In 1989, four days before Deaf Way I in Washington, D.C., Paul Johnston and Miller hosted a think-tank for Deaf artists to extend the work that Spectrum had begun by further examining visual art about the Deaf experience. After analyzing a body of artworks by Deaf artists, they observed a pattern of motifs and themes that led them to the creation of a manifesto. They coined a phrase for their art movement: Deaf View/Image Art. The term originated in ASL before English words were ascribed to it, and then an abbreviation was decided upon. It can be signed “Deaf V-‘look at palm’ Art,” or in the abbreviated form of De’VIA. De’ represents the word Deaf without spelling it out fully, and De’ serves as a nod to France, Laurent Clerc’s birthplace, and reminds us that the origins of ASL and Deaf culture have French roots. The word de in France means “of,” and this was to be works “of” and “about” Deaf people.

At the end of the four-day think-tank, the artists collaborated on a mural, which became a visual form of the manifesto and a representation of the group’s signature. The mural was put on display at [Page 40]the Washburn Art Center at Gallaudet University, where it disappeared mysteriously after only a few days. It has never been found. The manifesto stated that De’VIA works tend to have a central focus and use colors boldly and a strong contrast. Themes and motifs about the Deaf experience are expressed in De’VIA works, as is the use of Deaf perspectives and metaphors. Deaf artists could create De’VIA works by intending to signify the Deaf experience in the work.

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