Hard of Hearing and Deaf 

Dear Common Community,

Today begins a journey into a series of new art works revolving around being #hardofhearing and #deaf 

I have lived between both of these realities for my whole life. With out hearing aids I do not hear any sound, with them I can hear about 50% of what a normal person may hear. Though my level of loss is degenerative, and aging plays a role, the next 20 years should be interesting :)) Most of my life has been spent pretending “I was not deaf and hard of hearing”. Too many years have gone by. Its time to take responsibility for this. Share and tell my story and hopefully use it as a tool to connect and help others who also know this space too well. 

This animated #gif has been created to illustrate the endless stop and go like cycle and struggle of trying to hear and overcompensate for the what I am not hearing part. An animated GIF works perfectly to display the infinite loop of daily occurrence. Plus, animated GIFs are soundless. The sleepy eyes of the tired hearing aid reveals its face…It is exhausting and often difficult to manage the emotions that go along with this cycle in real-time. You probably have never noticed this before. I have thought over and over and long and hard about how this series of works should start. Im done with that and jumping in. Images were taken and re-rendered from the public domain. This is a #metaphor – can you understand why I did that? #communication is everything when you are missing more than half of all the sounds in your day to day reality.

Much more to come. Feel free to ask me any questions. 

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