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Call (David) Linocut Prints Pertaining to the Deaf, Disability Rights and Sign Language
BANC PIC 2013.025--D  
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Table of contents What's This?

item 1

The power of ASL

Physical Description: 1 print : linocut ; image 15 x 20 cm, on sheet 29 x 39 cm

Note

Artist’s Statement: It is the power of ASL that created Deaf community with a strong identity. It is the power of ASL that give us beautiful natural sign language. It is the power of ASL that allows us to be artistically creative with storytelling, A to Z storytelling, and poetry telling. It is the power of ASL that enables us to stand up for our rights. It is the power of ASL that made us who we are...

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Artist's no.: 34/50
item 2

Martha’s Vineyard, mother sign language

Physical Description: 1 print : linocut ; image 31 x 46 cm, on sheet 56 x 76 cm

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Artist’s Statement: Martha’s Vineyard is the place where most of the ASL came from. Everyone had used ASL for nearly 200 years. ASL was transported across the sea to the mainland. It gave birth to ASL in America. The image shows mother earth signing naturally in ASL with Martha’s Vineyard Island in the sunrise. These ships are bringing ASL to the mainland. Instead of “mother tongue”, Martha’s Vineyard is our “mother sign language” which passes ASL down the generations.

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Artist's no.: 11/50
item 3

Submission

Physical Description: 1 print : linocut ; image 31 x 46 cm, on sheet 57 x 76 cm

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Artist’s Statement: This image portrays a little Deaf boy who is wandering aimlessly and not knowing where to get out of oppressive world of audism. His head is covered with a burlap bag and tied up with a rope to show that the Deaf boy have to submit to the so called “Hearing audist superiors”. Button eyes hide boy’s true Deaf identity in his eyes and audists want to hide it from him and the public. Bells are sewn on both sides of head as the “ears”. The bells are ringing incessantly to annoy him and keep his mind clouded with noises to keep him from realizing that he is a human being with Deaf identity. The bells symbolize AG Bell with its countless hearing trainings and cochlear implants. The mouth stitches had been crudely sewn on the face to reflect countless futile attempts by oralists to teach him to speak. Oversized adults gloves covered boy's tiny hands and clamped them tightly with ropes to remind him that natural sign language is wrong and to hide them from the public. Audists propped the outside doors with wooden studs to make sure that the Deaf boy stay trapped inside forever. My message to you is that there are thousands of young Deaf children subjected to oppression by audists in the public schools across the country. They need your help in getting them out and bring them to their rightful place, the Deaf community.

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Artist's no.: 12/50
item 4

Me your mother

Physical Description: 1 print : linocut ; image 46 x 31 cm, on sheet 77 x 57 cm

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Artist’s Statement: Alice Cogswell is shining brightly among the stars looking down on American School for the Deaf with pride. She is signing, “Me Your Mother”, because she is the mother of all schools for the Deaf in America. She changed American Deaf history when she met Thomas Gallaudet. She left an everlasting legacy in America as many Deaf schools across the nation were modeled after Alice Cogswell’s school, American School for the Deaf. When you look up the night sky and see the brightest star, you will know who is watching over us.

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Artist's no.: 12/50
item 5

Deafhood unleashed

Physical Description: 1 print : linocut ; image 46 x 31 cm, on sheet 77 x 57 cm

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Artist’s Statement: The hands in chains represent thousands of Deaf people being oppressed in the world of audism. The hands in chains are signing “desire” because they have natural desire to be free from oppression. When the oppressed Deaf people discover Deafhood, the chains of oppression start to dissolve and hands becomes free as butterfly.

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Artist's no.: 14/50
item 6

The new beginning

Physical Description: 1 print : linocut ; image 31 x 46 cm, on sheet 57 x 77 cm

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Artist’s Statement: This image shows Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc signing “Unity” together to show their steadfast determination to work together to start a school for the Deaf in America. The galleon with a bright sunrise, which brought Gallaudet and Clerc from France to America, symbolized the new beginning of American Deaf education.

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Artist's no.: 19/50
item 7

Breakthrough

Physical Description: 1 print : linocut ; image 61 x 46 cm, on sheet 73 x 77 cm

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Artist’s Statement: The main theme of this linocut is Abbé de l’Epée being underground in a stone lined crypt sledgehammering Aristotle’s crypt wall down to set Deaf butterflies free. Aristotle, an ancient Greek philosopher, once said that Deaf was incapable of learning because they cannot hear, thus setting off two thousand years of Dark Age in deaf education. The Roman numerals, “MM”, representing 2K years of darkness, are being split in half by a sledgehammer which is a metaphor for a major breakthrough in the progress of deaf education. The two butterflies symbolize two deaf sisters whom Abbé de l’Epée met for the first time and used "their" sign language in order to educate them about God. He initiated the first of a long series of revolutions in using the natural language of sign. He showed us the way out by going up the stairway toward our emancipation. The coat of arms hanging on the keystone above actually is the coat of arms of the city of Paris, where Abbé de l’Epée started world’s first public and, still in existence, school for the Deaf, the Institut National de Jueune Sourdes (INJS). The boat inside the coat of arms symbolizes the 1815 sea voyage of Gallaudet and Clerc to America. On the right side, there is a bust of the Father of German Oralism, Samuel Heinicke who thought sign not a route to abstract thought. Two short epee swords hanging on Heinicke’s crypt wall represents the duel or the exchanges of letters between himself and Abbé de l’Epée on the heated debate on how best to educate the deaf. The six fleurs at the upper corners represents prominent people in French Deaf history. The three on the right with Ambrose Sicard, Thomas Gallaudet, and Auguste Bebian are the hearing allies of the Deaf. The other three on the left with Jean Massieu, Laurent Clerc, and Ferdinand Berthier are the illustrious graduates and teachers. They all contributed to their deaf community, and indirectly to the American and the world Deaf communities. The Deaf souls were, are, and still will be entrapped by “oralism” behind the unbroken crypt wall in which Abbé de l’Epée had failed to shatter open. This job is still and now left to us to finish his sledgehammering . . .Written with Charles Katz.

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Artist's no.: 8/20
item 8

Obey

Physical Description: 1 print : linocut ; image 46 x 31 cm, on sheet 77 x 57 cm

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Artist’s Statement: This is a Soviet socialist realism propaganda poster of my Eye Hand Studio logo. It sends a message to anyone who doubt the power of natural sign language which helps Deaf people learn visually. There were countless attempts by audists to use auditory and speech approach to Deaf education which ended in failure. The audists must understand that Deaf people learn best through their hands and eyes. Obey the power of hands and eyes and Deaf people will flourish!

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Artist's no.: 11/15