My First Self Portrait

8 inch by 10 inch
oil on canvas
2010
SOLD

This self-portrait depicts me at approximately ten years old, wearing a vintage Siemens Model 394 Ultra Transistor body hearing aid, manufactured in Germany around 1967, with a wire-core earmold. I disliked wearing the hearing aid, which became a significant part of my early experience of navigating the expectations placed upon Deaf children to conform to hearing norms. At the same time, I was beginning to explore and develop my own sense of identity through signing the word DEAF. The work captures a formative moment in my childhood when the tension between imposed hearing expectations and my emerging Deaf identity began to take shape.