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For ASL poetry the further break down of a sign into handshape, movement, palm orientation, and nonmanual signals offers the ASL poet many opportunities to rhyme in ASL. When you use the B handshape to sign BIRTH, CHILDREN, RAISED-UP it is a handshape rhyme.

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Biographical Information: Chuck Baird was born deaf in 1947 in Kansas City. He attended the Kansas School for the Deaf. He earned his BFA in Painting in 1974 from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). In 1980, he joined the National Theater of the Deaf where he was an actor and set designer. He was in charge of painting the sets. He moved to San Diego in 1992 and worked as an in-house artist for DawnSignPress but eventually ended up moving back to Kansas about a year later. When he was back in Kansas City, he designed his own painting and sculpture studio. Chuck was a well-known Deaf artist who created many different works of art that many Deaf people could relate to. He unfortunately passed away in 2012. (Biography1) (Biography2)

Artist's Statement: "Art is my whole life. When I sign 'art', a ray of light represents the ray of Hope. Those flying objects in front of myself represent my various mediums."

This is the second in the 'Art' series, the first of which is on the cover of his book Background Information: " Chuck Baird: 35 Plates. These are crisp illustrations, seemingly drawn in mid-air, of the sign for 'artist', a concept that is essential to Chuck. In the first painting, the sign is seen from the viewpoint of the signer/artist, but in the present work, it is seen from the viewpoint of the receptor/viewer."

Connection to Theme:I felt that this piece connected to my theme because it is the perfect painting to describe Deaf artists. Chuck painted himself actually signing the word "art" in his picture; how cool! He then painted various art tools flying around him which expressed the different types of art he creates. The light coming from his hand represents hope, which Deaf people sometimes desperately need in this society. They are constantly belittled and looked down at for their so-called "disability" and sometimes being Deaf in a hearing world can become overwhelming and hard. Deaf people need outlets to express themselves, their culture, and their passions. I feel this painting is a light of hope and inspiration for Deaf people to find a passion and embrace themselves to it, whether it be art or something else. It encourages the Deaf community to find a way to express who they are. Chuck Baird has many other amazing paintings, however, I chose this one in specific because I think it ties in with my exhibit very well and makes a great first post. It is an ASL art creation of the word artist. Chuck took a word and turned it into a painting... Deaf people can be incredibly creative!

Artist statement and background information (ctrl + click here)
Painting information (ctrl + click here)

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Biographical Information: Chuck Baird was born deaf in 1947 in Kansas City. He attended the Kansas School for the Deaf. He earned his BFA in Painting in 1974 from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). In 1980, he joined the National Theater of the Deaf where he was an actor and set designer.

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D-PAN (Deaf Professional Artist's Network) ASL Music Video

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D-PAN (Deaf Professional Artist's Network) ASL Music Video

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(CBS) - This one is going to get your feet tapping, your smile snapping and your hands clapping. Check out the Deaf Professional Arts Network's (D-PAN) music video of "We're Going To Be Friends" by the White Stripes.

There's something so touching about all of these children getting together and making such a wonderful and inspiring music video. And you can't go wrong in terms of viral videos if you're going with some music by the White Stripes, either. This video has definitely earned a triple-rainbow salute from all of us here at The Feed! And if you'd like to know more about D-PAN, you can check out their website by clicking here.

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ASL music video of The White Stripe's "We're Going To Be Friends" will make you smile

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(CBS) - This one is going to get your feet tapping, your smile snapping and your hands clapping. Check out the Deaf Professional Arts Network's (D-PAN) music video of "We're Going To Be Friends" by the White Stripes. There's something so touching about all of these children getting together and making such a wonderful and inspiring music video.

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Camryn Manheim- ASL Student to ASL Performing Artist

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Camryn Manheim- ASL Student to ASL Performing Artist

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NEW YORK -- Actors usually have all sorts of special skills they've picked up along the way -- sword-fighting, judo, a Scandinavian accent. Camryn Manheim has American Sign Language.

The former "The Practice" star is currently showcasing that skill in a crackling Broadway revival of "Spring Awakening," which mixes hearing and deaf performers.

It turns out that a hole in her transcript, a car accident and some inspiration led Manheim to become fluent in sign language.

THE LANGUAGE REQUIREMENT

Manheim, whose family is academically inclined, initially had trouble getting into college. She needed to pass two languages, but struggled beyond English.

She failed French and Spanish twice before deciding to enrol at Cabrillo Community College and study American Sign Language. Something about the fluidity and choreography of the movements appealed to her.

She didn't plan on a future with it, and she didn't know any deaf people. "I just needed to get to university so my parents wouldn't cut me out of the will," she said.

Manheim took two semesters of ASL, got into the University of California at Santa Cruz and graduated four years later in 1984.

She had retained only about 15 signs and the alphabet. She could ask "Are you deaf?" and "Could you slow down and sign that again?"

Manheim was soon accepted to New York University to get her master's in acting. But before she left, she suddenly needed ASL badly.

THE ACCIDENT

A few days before she left Santa Cruz, Manheim was walking down the street when she saw a pedestrian hit by a car. She knocked on the nearest door and asked the homeowner to call an ambulance.

She went back to the accident scene. The man who had been hit was motionless on his back, breathing but not moving. His eyes were open.

Police and medics surrounded the man, asking his name and phone number. He was silent. They soon grew impatient trying to communicate with him.

"I don't know why it dawned on me but it hit me. I thought, 'Maybe he's deaf?' So I walked over to the police officer and I said, 'Is it possible he's deaf?"' Manheim said.

"He said, 'Do you know sign language?' I said, 'I know 10 signs.' He said, 'Ask him if he's deaf.' That was one of the signs I knew."

She asked him and he said yes. The police officers quickly asked her to come to the hospital with them to help translate.

"I said, 'I don't know sign language.' And he said, 'You know more than we do.' I remember thinking, 'I have never been asked so nicely to get in the back of a police car before."'

Manheim got the man's phone number and called his family, who were all deaf. Over the next five hours, she used a mixture of charades, Pictionary and finger spelling to communicate with them.

"I felt terrible that I didn't know more."

A SIGN TO SIGN

In New York, just a few days into her graduate school life, Manheim passed a sign on a building that would change her career: New York Society for the Deaf.

"I walked in and said, 'Do you have any beginning classes on Monday nights? That's my only night off.' They said, 'That's the only night we teach beginning classes."'

She took them, then intermediate classes, then advanced ones over the next three years. She became so fluent that she was qualified as an ASL interpreter.

As she leapt into the often brutal life of an unknown actor, Manheim kept up with ASL both as a backup career and a source of helping her community.

"It gave me something that made me feel like I mattered and that I could do some good," she said. "For a staunch atheist as I am, it was really a gift from the gods."

Sandra Mae Frank, a deaf actress who plays Manheim's daughter in "Spring Awakening," said she met the older actress in Los Angeles during the show's initial run.

"I was so excited because I know her work from 'The Tenth Kingdom' and 'Ghost Whisperer.' Imagine my surprise when she started communicating with me in ASL!" she wrote in an email. "She brings a new perspective to the show; her energy is so raw on the stage."

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How did Camryn Manheim become fluent in American Sign Language?

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NEW YORK -- Actors usually have all sorts of special skills they've picked up along the way -- sword-fighting, judo, a Scandinavian accent. Camryn Manheim has American Sign Language. The former "The Practice" star is currently showcasing that skill in a crackling Broadway revival of "Spring Awakening," which mixes hearing and deaf performers.

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Before they discuss sign language or Deaf culture, hearing people should first acknowledge Deaf people.

Debra Russell's speech-

This video responses to Justin Vollmar's video titled "Archeology have proved that Exodus is a myth."

How should Deaf people interact with disabled/handicapped people?

Deaf- Have you ever encountered a mute person? Please share with me your experiences.
PART ONE PART TWO
Captions will be added to these videos soon.

Lydia Callis, the interpreter for Mayor Bloomberg during Hurricane Sandy, became famous on internet overnight because of her facial expressions. A number of Deaf people have expressed their objection against those who mock the interpreter and American Sign Language, especially the comedian Chelsea Handler. How should we, as Deaf individuals, response to such mockery of our culture and language?

Although I realize that language changes, I find myself being uncertain about allowing hearing-induced changes in ASL to circulate around. I use "#16-19" in ASL as an example. I'd love to hear your opinions on whether we should welcome hearing-induced changes or not. I also briefly discuss the role of mainstream interpreters.

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Before they discuss sign language or Deaf culture, hearing people should first acknowledge Deaf people. Debra Russell's speech- This video responses to Justin Vollmar's video titled "Archeology have proved that Exodus is a myth." How should Deaf people interact with disabled/handicapped people? Deaf- Have you ever encountered a mute person?

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This year, the American School for the Deaf in Hartford celebrates its 200th anniversary. The school is the founding place of American Sign Language.

The classical music ensemble Cuatro Puntos this week performed its concert series, Celebrating Deaf Music Culture from Beethoven to Present, in collaboration with the school.

"Squish" is a piece of music written for a deaf audience, and was the opening number in the concert at the American School for the Deaf.

Cuatro Puntos collaborated with an American Sign Language storyteller for the performance.

As the ensemble played, Danielle Holdridge signed the tale of King Kong. In this version, the giant gorilla and his human love are both deaf.

Holdridge said music isn't just for people who can hear. It's also for people who can feel it.

"When I think of music, I don't necessarily think of the auditorial," Holdridge said. "I associate it with what's happening inside of me. Music is actually my favorite thing to interpret, or to change into sign language, because I can feel the music in my body."

During the performance, the audience grabbed balloons on the backs of their chairs so they could feel the vibrations from a percussionist's snare drum.

The percussionist explained this is how deaf musicians hear music. They tell what note they're playing by feeling how big or small the vibration is, and where it's located on their bodies.

Executive Director of Cuatro Puntos and violist Kevin Bishop said playing music for deaf audiences has changed how he thinks about music.

"As professional musicians who have spent our entire life perfecting an art that we suspect is, you know, all about hearing -- to then, you know, dive in and learn about how even people who can't hear can enjoy this, and take part in music, and play instruments... It's a very different experience as a musician," Bishop said. "It really makes you think about how the people you are playing for are experiencing it."

The program included a piece by Beethoven, who lost his hearing in the middle of his composing career, as well as a piece from Connecticut composer David Macbride.

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This year, the American School for the Deaf in Hartford celebrates its 200th anniversary. The school is the founding place of American Sign Language. The classical music ensemble Cuatro Puntos this week performed its concert series, Celebrating Deaf Music Culture from Beethoven to Present, in collaboration with the school.

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Special thanks to Megan Erasmus, Pamela Macias and Scott Vollmar for making this possible!

In order:
"Peanut Butter & Jelly" (Merged Storytelling Style) by Dustin Hand and Bruce Brewer, Jr.
"Sunset" (Storytelling) by Kimora Vollmar
"Call of Duty" (Initialized Letters) by Carlo DeNunno
"Lost Pig" (Storytelling) by Mattea King
"Flight" (A-Z Storytelling) by Adrien Ercolino
"Cat" (Classifiers) by Nirveli Smith
"Football" (Train of Stories) by Dustin Hand, Angelica Baldondao, Justice Davis, Coffey King and Bruce Brewer, Jr.

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Special thanks to Megan Erasmus, Pamela Macias and Scott Vollmar for making this possible! In order: "Peanut Butter & Jelly" (Merged Storytelling Style) by Dustin Hand and Bruce Brewer, Jr.

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This week on HowlRound, we're discussing Deaf theatre. This series is a result of the NEA Roundtable on "Opportunities for Deaf Theatre Artists" hosted by the Lark Play Development Center in New York City on January 20, 2016.
2015 was a breakthrough year for Deaf artists. Deaf West's Broadway revival of Spring Awakening inspired rave reviews at every turn. Artist Christine Sun Kim enchanted TedTalk viewers with "the music of sign language," and the hashtag #DeafTalent (brainchild of filmmaker Jules Dameron) trended on Twitter, garnering widespread awareness for the importance of casting Deaf actors for d/Deaf roles. Deaf people also featured prominently in the world of hearing entertainment: Deaf model/actor Nyle DiMarco won the 2015 season of America's Next Top Model; ABC Family's Switched at Birth entered its fourth season starring an array of Deaf and hard of hearing actors. In addition, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's Ukrainian Sign Language film took festivals by storm across the US and Europe. It seemed like centuries of stigma against deafness might actually be falling away.

But if we look deeper, "seemed" is indeed the operative term. Simultaneously, Deaf education throughout the developed world is in a state of crisis. The medical community continues to push medical devices on parents of deaf babies, with the accompanying medical advice that the child be enrolled in oral-only education. Bilingualism, the goal for many hearing children, is framed as a fallback for deaf ones, who are supposed to focus on learning to pass in the "normal" world.

Here in the States, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) stipulates that children with disabilities or special needs must be educated in the "Least Restrictive Environment" (LRE); that is, the child should be placed in a mainstream classroom setting and should not be removed unless the nature of the disability is too "severe." But the LRE is built on the definition of "restrictive" from a hearing perspective-it does nothing to consider a child's holistic development. Even strong assistive technology and interpreters do not achieve 100 percent access to the linguistic and social environment of the classroom. What if the environment in which a Deaf student can be around other Deaf people and communicate freely without mediation is the least restrictive environment?

The problem that stems from IDEA is twofold. First, deaf children are isolated-in the mainstream one might be the only deaf child in his class, grade, or school. Actor and advocate Tyrone Giordano, who presented on the history of Deaf education at the National Endowment for the Arts' Roundtable on Theatre by and Featuring Deaf Artists this January, purports that educators have confused "full participation in society" with homogeny. This "melting pot" concept "is actually quite harmful," Giordano says, "because if you take the analogy a little further, if you stop applying the heat, what happens? There will naturally be separation, and some will rise to the top while others sink to the bottom." Isolated from their teachers and peers, it's no surprise that deaf students find themselves in greater danger of sinking in mainstream environments.

Ty Giordano presenting at the NEA Roundtable. Photo by Beth Bienvenu

Secondly, the remaining Deaf schools and their pupils also suffer ancillary damage from the effects of mainstreaming. Those Deaf schools that have avoided closure have morphed from bilingual institutions and strong community centers to what Giordano terms "dumping grounds for the 'failures' of mainstreaming." This of course "has a [large] impact on the best and brightest Deaf students attending these schools." For the community at large, the absence of a strong, healthy center makes everyone weaker. ASL is a living language, and it cannot continue to thrive without interaction between Deaf people. Without ASL users, there can be no ASL storytelling, poetry or Deaf Theatre.

In both the mainstream and these deteriorated Deaf school classrooms, deaf children lose the single most important concept for a burgeoning artist: the understanding that one's unique worldview has value, and should be shared with the world.

So while society's positive response to Deaf art may seem like a step in the right direction, any gains we make in this manner are the proverbial house built on sand without robust educational support systems for deaf and hard of hearing children. Appreciating ASL aesthetically for its artistic value without also caring for the wellbeing of the people to whom it belongs is little more than garden-variety cultural appropriation.

The Deaf community cannot survive without its hearing allies, and the hearing world cannot continue to clap for Deaf artists while simultaneously eroding the infrastructure that makes Deaf artistry possible. Deaf children must be allowed to play and learn together in a language-rich environment, to be educated bilingually with ASL as a strong foundation for English and other languages. If we want Deaf art to continue to thrive, we need a unified front that ensures Deaf children have an education that will foster the linguistic and emotional capacity and the strong sense of identity it takes to become an artist in the first place.

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More than Applause: Deaf Art Needs Deaf Ed

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This week on HowlRound, we're discussing Deaf theatre. This series is a result of the NEA Roundtable on "Opportunities for Deaf Theatre Artists" hosted by the Lark Play Development Center in New York City on January 20, 2016. 2015 was a breakthrough year for Deaf artists.

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De'Via (Deaf View Image Art) "Portrait of a Deaf Man"

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De'Via (Deaf View Image Art) "Portrait of a Deaf Man"

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Creating self- in character or pulling a face was a traditional form of student exercise. But this image was created when the painter was the most famous artist of the age. Instead of an experiment, it seems to be a more considered statement.

Reynolds may have focused on his own struggle to hear (he went deaf in later years) as a way of expressing the artist's struggle to create an image from his raw materials. In his lectures on art, delivered at the Royal Academy, Reynolds stressed the arduous, and thus morally uplifting, nature of art.

Gallery label, August 2004

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'Self-Portrait as a Deaf Man', Sir Joshua Reynolds, c.1775 | Tate

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Artwork page for 'Self-Portrait as a Deaf Man', Sir Joshua Reynolds, c.1775 Creating self-portraits in character or pulling a face was a traditional form of student exercise. But this image was created when the painter was the most famous artist of the age. Instead of an experiment, it seems to be a more considered statement.

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The Tortoise and the Hare in American Sign Language

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Translated by Bregitt Jimenez Edited by Austin Balaich Special thanks to New Mexico School for the Deaf for allowing us to use their fabulous studio!