UNSTORIED SELF

by Kelsie Balehowsky

. . .

Were you thinking that those were the words, those upright lines? those curves, angles, dots?

No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground and sea, They are in the air, they are in you.

Were you thinking that those were the words, those delicious sounds out of your friends' mouths?

No, the real words are more delicious than they.

Human bodies are words, myriads of words,

(In the best poems re-appears the body. . .)

-Walt Whitman - A Song of the Rolling Earth

Communication is more than words or sounds, and language is more than written words. We communicate and learn from not only the words we speak and the words we read, but we also learn from the land, from each other, and we communicate with and through our bodies. If you are hard of hearing or Deaf, this becomes less of an abstract thought or idea, and more of a concrete reality. People who experience hearing loss depend on their own and each others’ bodies to communicate and construct meaning. Kelsie Grazier is a Vancouver-based visual artist whose work demonstrates this notion. Grazier uses art as a tool for sensemaking, specifically her experience with hearing loss and deafness, and what it means to live in between two worlds and two cultures. Unstoried Self is a multi-media, immersive, site-specific installation for the Vernon Public Art Gallery which navigates the complexities of identity, disability, language, light, space, and Deaf culture. The exhibition is comprised of four bodies of work by Grazier: photographs, hybrid paintings and drawings, a projected light sculpture, and video.

Grazier’s drawings are gestural in quality and nature; and are an intuitive conversation between Grazier and her medium. Margaret Macintyre Latta summarizes this relationship perfectly by stating “content is what work is about, material is the concrete and abstract matter out of which work is constructed, and form comprises the relationships in work between self, content, and materials.”1 By using graphite, mylar, and oil paint, Grazier creates raw and expressive works. Upon close reflection, one notices that some marks are strong and visual, others are falling apart as lines are erased, decaying or are white. As you get closer to the works, one may have to really look for the different marks by getting close and becoming increasingly focused. Some of the white marks are white on white and have an invisible quality to them. This acts as a metaphor for Grazier’s experience with hearing loss; a reference to the intense focus to hear coupled with the feeling of being invisible, especially in loud situations.2 Working with the graphite becomes a raw and gritty release, translating everyday rhythms into the thickness of the line, smudges, and discontinuous passages; an emotional, quick, heavy, and loaded conversation with self. Grazier uses these works to express areas of frustration, such as navigating a world that is not set up for people with hearing loss (especially during a pandemic) yet attempting to find moments of connection and calm within the noise.

Light plays a large role in this exhibition; it is also a crucial element for those who rely on visual communication such as Sign Language. Light is necessary to see, which in essence for those with hearing loss, light is necessary to hear; light is illuminating. On the ground in the gallery space, you will find shattered mirror pieces arranged on the floor. There is also a film playing that is projected onto the broken mirror, which in turn reflect, refract, and fragment the video in a beautiful yet jarring way. This acts as a metaphor for her shattered sense of identity.3 The video is a documentary style film made by Grazier, which documents the process of her creating the drawings and paintings in the exhibition. The video feels vulnerable; Grazier working alone in her studio, her white cochlear implant on display. Often when speaking about hearing loss and deafness, especially in a context where hearing equipment is being focused on, the prevalent messaging is about assimilating to the dominant culture; hiding your hearing equipment with an emphasis on “how small it is” or “you don’t even notice it!” In this video, Grazier is reckoning with these feelings and choosing to embrace and celebrate her Deaf identity while tackling feelings of how unnatural it feels to be on display, as well as feelings of isolation and not being Deaf enough.

In another area of the gallery, you will find a series of photographs documenting hands in different shapes and movements. These photographs are lighter in nature and blurry at times as they are detailing a movement during a moment in time. These hands speak to the eyes and mind and document Grazier signing in American Sign Language.

ASL is at all times composed of lines, invisible and kinetic; they are the paths that etch out a particular “direction of course or movement.” In fact, one could say that signed discourse is composed from an assemblage of lines drawn in space through the body’s movements. While these lines are woven with other linguistic parameters – a particular handshape, palm orientation, location, movement path, and nonmanual signals –the line is more than the sum of its parts. The line carries a generating capacity, an expressiveness all its own whose speed, tension, length, direction, and duration construct and disperse a particular energy.4

By cutting off the image at the forearms and only displaying the hands, they become dynamic in movement but fragmented. One does not have access to the full sign as the facial expression is absent (which is integral in understanding the meaning in ASL). The soft and ephemeral photographs act as a glimpse of a memory that is fading or not clear, inaccessible in nature. This relates to the disconnection present in society that makes it hard to connect to the Deaf community at large due to geographical and structural barriers. These photographs act as a homage; a yearning desire to tap into the memory and knowledge system of her Deaf ancestors.5 Deaf culture is a culture within a community. Thinking about culture aids in the circulation of meaning and is a process of acceleration of culture. Culture talking is an unbelievably powerful trait of humans. We express to each other all the meaning and knowledge of our worlds and in doing so create kinds of “imagined communities.” We express a world that emanates from “me” but includes “we.”6

Kelsie Grazier’s exhibition Unstoried Self is a critical examination of self and self in relation to others; a powerful kind of visual sensemaking. Grazier is not only revealing and creating her identity through art, but she is also processing identities and creating artifacts in the process that help us to hold and circulate among us and among others those notions that we wish to project into public space; a vulnerable contribution to the ever growing and ever changing landscape of Deaf culture in Canada.

Endnotes:

1 Curriculum as Medium for Sense Making: Giving Expression to Teaching/Learning Aesthetically by Margaret Macintyre Latta in Diaz, Gene and Martha McKenna. 2004. Teaching for Aesthetic Experience: The Art of Learning. Vol. 6.;6;. New York: P. Lang.

2 Studio Visit with Kelsie Grazier on November 20th, 2022

3 Studio Visit with Kelsie Grazier on November 20th, 2022

4 Bauman, H. L. (2006). Signing the body poetic: Essays on American Sign Language literature University of California Press.

5 Studio Visit with Kelsie Grazier on November 20th, 2022

6 Talking Culture and Culture Talking in Bauman, H-Dirksen L. and ProQuest (Firm). 2008; 2007. Open Your Eyes: Deaf Studies Talking. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

Kelsie Balehowsky is a Canadian contemporary Visual Artist and Arts Educator based on the Okanagan/ unceded and ancestral territory of the Syilx people. She received her BFA from the University of British Columbia Okanagan in 2014 and has exhibited in group and solo exhibitions in Canada and abroad.

Balehowsky’s work is primarily concerned with themes of the uncanny, technology and connection. She is passionate about community and in recent years her work has focused on curation and community engaged and inspired projects/artworks. Balehowsky believes art is a powerful tool for education, connection, and communication; her artistic practice is a means to observe, express, interpret, and process the world around her. Balehowsky’s son is hard of hearing which has sparked in her a passion for advocacy and accessibility for her hard of hearing community.