At a dinner party attended by artists up the wazoo last week, I heard for the first time about Joseph Grigely, an internationally-known deaf artist who has created works out of the conversations he's had on cocktail napkins and the like (interview with Grigely here, examples of his work here).
I found this interesting for a couple reasons. First, because apparently hearing people find this work enthralling while the rest of us have taken written communication for granted as a medium. Second, because it was the third time I'd heard about such work or ideas. The second time was when I attended Louise Stern's reading performance at Gallaudet -- she's apparently working on something similar.
And the first was when I hung out for the night in a bar with a fellow creative... who was hearing.
Near the end of the night I went to visit the loo, and when I came back I found the middle third of my notebook missing. He'd ripped them out and stolen them and then told me, in a roundabout way, that it was for art's sake. He planned to do something with those pages. I'm still waiting to find out what.
I was a little surprised. That was my notebook, and that was just as much my handwriting as it was his. But I let him have those pages. I would have just thrown them away anyway.
Today I was flipping through said notebook, looking frantically for blank pages to write on while I was in the middle of an interview, and I found this lost fragment from that night. Consider it my drunken, amateur, and meager contribution to this new genre of art.
Oh my, this made me laugh aloud. Very funny! Interesting info on Joseph Grigely as well.
Posted by: Holly Kay | February 03, 2012 at 08:44 PM
And the first was when I hung out for the night in a bar with a fellow creative... who was hearing.
Posted by: swarovski crystal | February 15, 2012 at 02:06 AM