Somewhat Silent

As an illustrator, I asked a local graphic designer, who just moved to Montreal recently, about any advice for me relating to the field and she suggested the book “How to be a graphic designer, without selling your soul” by Adrian Shaughnessy.

An excellent book, although it is geared towards graphic designers and their desire to run a studio and deal with clients. However, a few thoughts came across my mind and I thought I’d ask some of you here.

1) He mentions that communication is important and that making a pitch helps create a rapport and saleability of our work. How would a deaf designer or creative professional deal with that?

2) Should deaf creative professionals run a studio business with other hearing people, or are we better off freelancing alone in our home office? In other words, the author says that those who run a studio have a more open system of sharing resources, feedback and solving problems with pressure from clients as the only thing to deal with…while working alone has a huge benefit of doing your own thing but discipline is very difficult to maintain.

3) Should deaf creative professionals get an agent or rep for their work? Or should we go at it ourselves dealing with clientele at the risk of getting BS-ed by them? What happens if we cannot find a local rep or agent and are forced to do this ourselves?

Right now, I have one local art show next month to exhibit my illustrations and then another one next March in a popular nightclub. This way, I can market myself through the ‘underground’ and hope the use of word of mouth would be an effective viral campaign for me.
Although, I still continue to do my other freelance work and am almost done with the book cover illustration that’s been in the works for some time.

I emailed the author and got his response:

“Hi Adam

Thanks for your email. And thanks for your kind words about my book, I
really appreciate it.

Funnily enough, I once employed a deaf designer. I was asked by her
university to give her employment for a few weeks after she had graduated.
I interviewed her and found her to be a bright and engaging person. I sensed
she had plenty of inner strength. Her name was Sue.

Her work was ordinary; neither bad nor good, merely average. Nevertheless, I
was happy to take her on for a month. She lip read, and although her spoken
English was hard to understand at first, it soon became easy to grasp what
she was saying. There were no problems with her failing to understand what
was said to her.

At that time I also employed someone who had a profoundly deaf brother, and
I noticed that she was much better at dealing with Sue than the rest of us,
who were over cautious in our approach to her. As the only one of us with
experience of dealing with a deaf person, she dealt with Sue in an entirely
natural and unpatronising way.

So I think there is a lesson here: people have to learn to adjust to working
with deaf people, and I think many of us do it badly.

I wonder if it might help if you confronted this head on and said to
employers - look, I suppose you think it’s going to be difficult dealing
with me, but it’s not. I can be treated just like anyone else. I don’t need
special treatment.

This may sound simplistic - but I learned a lot by employing Sue. I learned
that people change when they have to deal with people with physical
disabilities - and they don’t need to.

My final thought is that if your work is good enough you will succeed. I’m
sure the barriers you encounter must be discouraging, but they are not
insurmountable. I also know one or two illustrators who conduct all their
business via email. I know this goes against my advice to build up good
communication with clients - but email can be an effective way of
communicating too.

I will continue to think about the issues your email raised, and if anything
else springs to mind, I’ll let you know.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards

Adrian”

Has anyone had those experiences?

Written in my own blog : www.lette.kimododreams.com on the 13th Nov.

I went in this morning for a visit to my Hearing specialist because of some trouble I have been having since the operation in April.
My right ear is as dead as a doornail, it doesnt do anything it causes me no trouble whatso ever, It doesnt hear anything and I dont know its there, and thats fine with me!
I wish I could say the same about my left ear!! Its a mess, since early July it started acting up with, pain discomfort and unbearable itching that is impossible to get at and horrible!! There are noises of all sorts and sometimes it sounds like I have a living thing running around inside my ear!!

So in I went this morning and told him everything, and the fact that im slowely loosing it because of all this stuff going on in my ear. He looked in, and said your right ear looks healthy, your left is alright but the Tube that we incerted in there is leaning against your ear canal and that is probably causing you all the discomfort…were going to have to move it.

“WHAT?? WHILE IM AWAKE??”
“Yeah it will be uncomfortable but shouldnt be painfull…”
He also told me my ear was wet inside in it and that leaves it open to infections so he needed to dry that up by putting powder in it.

We went through the ‘magic door’ I call it that, because its a room iv never been in, and every time I have gone into the ENT clinic I have been very curious to know what goes on in there.
Now that I was in there, I wished I hadnt been so curious!!!
He got me to lie down on the bed thing, it looked like a dentists chair, and he asked for what looked like the longest tweesers iv ever seen in my whole life, positioned my head, a light and himself, and began to move the T-Tube in my ear, it was uncomfortable to say the least!

The only way to describe it is like when getting a tooth pulled at the dentest, you cant feel it but the sounds, and other horrible feelings are going on and its a horrible experience.
As soon as he moved it my ear exploded into itching and it was the worst iv ever felt! a little sharp pain but nothing I couldnt handle, although I would have rathered no pain at all!
Then after about 5 mins at pulling and moving the tube, which is stuck through my ear drum remember, he said now thats that and you will feel a little puff and ill put in the powder to dry up the ear.

“PUFF”

…..and everything went…blank! all hearing I had left in that ear went dead, it was so strange!
“You may not hear anything out of that ear for a few days”
no shit im gone completely deaf! all I could make out was his lips, no sound in the least, nothing at all.
“Can you get by with only one aid?”
…”sorry what?”
He repeated slower and more pronounced,
“well if I have to” I said, but my right ear is dead.
“I dont want you to wear your left aid for a week, 2 weeks if you can go without it, to give your ear a chance to dry out. Ill call you back in a month to have a day procedure to trim the T-Tube, if its shorter it may calm down a bit, and if it doesnt we will have to take it out, and that may screw with your remaining hearing, but we will take this in steps and see how it goes”

So here I am, I cant hear a blessed thing, Keith god bless him was wonderful at lunch, scared shitless I might add, but tried a mixture of broken sign and carefully pronouncing his words, it worked
its strange though, I always thought id be prepaired for this if it happened, even if it is short term but its still scary, I cant hear anything at all, not even my voice and thats wierd.
So over the next while I have no hearing im taking advantage of learning to fine tune my sign language, im going into the DCC in the morning and sitting down with Sandra and saying nothing and just signing, and ill do that every day to bring my sign level up, so that if this does eventually happen long term, ill be some bit prepaired.

……………Nothing………absolutely nothing……..its strangely peacefull you know, and its funny to walk through town and watch cars and trucks fly past, and people talk and shout at eachother, lots of loud commotion, and hear…..nothing!!!

well its an experience, and wether I like it or not im stuck with it! and for now im doin alright…college is going to be a problem though!! meh, ill deal with that when it comes to it, and its only for a few days.