Visual Art In The Deaf Community

Visual art is a very significant aspect of Deaf culture, because everything experienced by the Deaf population is visual, even their language. Art in this culture, like any other, is used to express connectedness, emotion, and the hardships these people have experienced throughout their history. In this paper I will be discussing two very famous artists in the Deaf community, Chuck Baird and Betty G. Miller, and their greatest accomplishment for art in the Deaf community that makes them now inspirations to past/future/present Deaf artists.

First, I will discuss a little background on our two artists and some interesting things they have done. Chuck Baird was born deaf on February 22nd of 1947 in Kansas City. Chuck grew up producing art, he had been painting since his teen years and never stopped. He attended the famous Deaf higher education institution Gallaudet University and National Technical Institute for the Deaf. He also played football for a couple games before giving up his position to focus on his art. Before his career fully started he worked painting sets during the summer for National Theatre of the Deaf and later went to work for them doing a varies of jobs. After an art residency in California he compiled his first book “Chuck Baird, 35 Plates” ("Chuck Baird" DeafArt). Sadly, Baird passed away in February of 2012. Betty G. Miller was born moderately deaf to deaf

De’VIA stands for “Deaf View/Image Art” an art form that came about in the 70’s that focuses on Deaf experience (“Betty G. Miller: Art Pioneer”). To discover if Deaf art was a real art genre or just a thought, Betty put together a 4-day workshop called Deaf Way at posing the question “what is Deaf Art?”. Among the artists that participated was Chuck Baird. Their goals at Deaf Way was to talk about their experiences, debate common elements, a visual declaration, and to write the official