Visualizing Deaf and Disabled: From Amanda’s Perspective
An artwork by Amanda representing the two sides of her disabilities. Spilt through diagonal line, the left is the orange sun setting over the blue, calm water leading to the shore where there is a sandy area. On the right, a stormy night in the middle of sea with lightning and dark clouds. Waves are violently crashing into each other.
I am living with two disabilities and I view them differently as they made some impact in my life. How they interact with each other created additional challenges in my life that I work to minimize. I thought I would create this art piece to explore my feelings with my two disabilities, deafness and chronic pain.
The orange sun setting over the blue, calm water leading to the shore where there is a sandy area.
The Sunshine - deafness
There is something peaceful about silence. To me, it has the same feeling as sitting by the water, near nature, hearing the waves crash into each other and the birds chirping in the distance. That environment is probably the only time I think hearing is wonderful. The intensity of hearing with my devices is gone and I can appreciate the things that are happening around me.
It is the calmer time of my day when the world is quiet. I can focus on what is around me. Most people think that the silence is isolating, but I think hearing with my devices can be more isolating than not hearing at all. Here, I am not trying to meet anyone’s perception of what hearing is.
The Stormy Night - Chronic Pain
A stormy night in the middle of sea with lightning and dark clouds. Waves are violently crashing into each other.
Not surprising, the stormy night is my chronic pain experience. I have nerve pain so it does feel like what lightning represents. My devices can also make it worse by intensifying the storm, additional shocks to make the nerve pain worse. It is chaotic. It is scary. And it feels like it is never going to end.
But it does. The storm eventually passes by and leaves. Things that come up from the storm tells me what I need to improve on to make the storms less intense and the beautiful days happen more often. It is a cycle of learning to live with disabilities in a society that expects a certain level of productivity and commitment that fluctuates drastically for me.
None of these are necessarily good or bad but the ebbs and flows of balancing the two narratives I perceive of my disabilities. While I tend to view my disabilities in a specific way, there are good things and bad things that come out of both. And that is okay.
Amanda