PATTI DURR

Slideshow of photography of here inside my heart, Patti Durr. Mixed media assemblage, 2024
Images Descriptions: Narrow shelf with three levels with triptych doors that are kept folded out. Top of shelf looks like a birdhouse, painted dark blue with yellow edges and a big yellow and black eye. Two large gold sparkly wings come out from each side of the shelves. A birds’ nest is held by two gold hands that extend up from from the top of the birdhouse roof, with a feather, key and cracked blue empty eggshell inside. On the inside of the shelves, on the lowest level, there is an abalone shell holding two pieces of dried coral. In the middle layer, there is a mirror with a doll head in front with blue eyes, red blonde tight curls, a pearl necklace, and a whale/fish made of rainbow shiny abalone seashell in front of her lower neck. On the top layer, there is a tin sacred heart milagro frame that has a picture of a person shhhing inside with a monarch butterfly wing. In front of the milagro is a bird nest holding a key, an old honeycomb, and a cracked empty blue egg. On the insides of the two open doors of the front of the shelves, there are charms of a beaded heart and a realistic human blue eye hanging from the left side, and a worn crocodile leather wallet with dozens of antique keys hanging from it on the right side. The entire inside of the shelves, except for the insides of the open doors, is painted the same dark blue as the top birdhouse shape - thick paintstroke patterns are visible. Additional list of meanings and motifs below.

Guests in physical exhibition space are invited to gently touch and interact with this piece.

"here inside my heart" is an assemblage piece calling upon several motifs utilized within Deaf View/Image Art (De'VIA).  Birdhouses and nests are used to represent the Deaf community.  The two hands at top form the Filipino sign for 'community' and the eye at top signifies how Deaf people are people of the handeye. The dominant colors in the piece are yellow, blue and turquoise, the colors in the Sign Union flag and used in the Deaf activist art movement Surdism. Within the birdhouse cupboard are different found objects that connote kinship within the Deaf world and mothering of each other as we gain our feet as Surdists (Deaf ARTivist) who advocate for social change and justice.  Drawing from nature and solidarity, we sprout wings and take flight.  Good heart and courage are needed when confronting oppression peacefully and firmly.

This work is an exploration of my own evolution in terms of my identities.  The work is intended to be read bottom to top and the pieces within the piece welcome the touch of people who want to interact with the work, most especially DeafBlind folks.  Since I became the primary caregiver of our mom who has Alzheimers, I have been exploring the concept of kinship and other mothering - especially since our mom no longer recognizes me as her daughter and more and more sees me as her mother.

The different symbols in "here in my heart" symbolize how I have felt like a fish out of water as a Deaf child in a Hearing world and how signing came to me later in life and how self-love and acceptance has been the key to my being able to fully be me.  The nests explore the concept of home and belonging which I have found within my family of birth, my own family, and the Deaf community.  The title of the piece comes from a line in the poem Last Night As I Was Sleeping by Antonio Machado.  When i was helping my mother to care for my father as heart failure chipped away at him, I was doing a great deal of artworks with a heart with an eye on it and realized after re-reading The Little Prince again that we need to see with the heart.  During this time of mothering my mother, I've come to learn how I have God.

"here inside heart" and am forever grateful to all my kin (by blood and by good fortune) who have helped me to be me. 

PDurr was born partially Deaf and has created Deaf-themed works in theatre, film and visual art. Her visual art tends to be in mixed media. She has also published about Deaf View/Image Art De’VIA, Deaf Cinema and Deaf people during the Holocaust. PDurr enjoys watching others interact with her art and help bring it to life rather than for it to be a finalized piece that hangs at a distance. Others' thoughts and reflections are often more meaningful to her than the work itself.