ASL Club celebrates deaf art through handpainting event
Students paint their hands in relation to ASL signs.
Photo Credit: Mi-Ree Zwick
By Mi-Ree Zwick
ASL Club hosted a Halloween and fall-themed handpainting event to celebrate the artistry of the deaf community in J-Top on Friday afternoon, with some painting their hands as pumpkins, bats, autumn leaves, and more.
Handpainting is a form of Deaf View/Image Art or De’VIA which communicates the deaf experience to hearing people where the artist paints their hands to help visually represent the vocabulary word while paying attention to the sign handshape, orientation, and location on the hand.
Sophomore Nicole Straub attended the event and said that she appreciated seeing the signs in context with the different hand handshapes, movement, locations, orientations, and combinations of them by handpainting.
Sophomore Naomi Sharkey said that she did handpainting as an activity for her ASL class.
She thought that putting this activity in a public space allowed for people to see how deaf artists portray the world through art apart from her class.
“It gives you insight into how deaf people see the world because they’ve never heard it,” said Sharkey. “Seeing is how they hear the world.”
Sharkey also said that handpainting is messy, but that it is also enjoyable.
Junior Katherine Seifferlein is the president of ASL Club and organized the event and described how handpainting works as a visual representation for ASL.
“If I was doing the sign for turtle, [my hand] looks like the shell of a turtle when you do the sign,” said Seifferlein. She would paint the parts of her hand to correspond with the various parts of the turtle in the sign.
Seifferlein said that another reason she chose to do handpainting as an event for the club was because it is a memorable way to learn new information.
Many members of the ASL Club joined with little to no knowledge of ASL, so events like handpainting helps them recall the sign for the vocabulary word.
“The point of [ASL Club] is to learn about other people, and handpainting is a good way to do this,” said Seifferlein.
Seifferlein highly encourages people to come by for events. No prior knowledge is needed to enjoy community with others and that the club is always willing to help people learn more sign language.
“I was really interested in getting involved with the ASL club and community on campus,” said Straub. “I really love participating in events like this.”
