David Call

David Call began his artistic career late in life by using linocut. For years, Call taught social studies at California School for the Deaf Fremont and incorporated art in his lesson plans. He later became an art teacher. Teaching students, he instinctively knew that they needed to express their deaf experience through art. At the time, he didn’t know about De’VIA. Call decided to google “Deaf Art” for ideas on what to teach his students and came with images by Ann Silver, Chuck Baird, Susan Dupor, and learned about De’VIA. He wanted his students to understand their identities and express their experience growing up Deaf. As Call encouraged his students to explore themes within deaf art, he turned inward, and began to do the same. As a result he started to create De’VIA-based artworks.

As an artivist and suridst, Call focuses on themes about Deafhood, Deaf History and uncovering hidden stories within Deaf history, celebrating the beauty of deaf culture, and revealing the oppression of Deaf people. In 2016, he created a mythical story about a planet called Eyeth with celestial beings such as The Star Maker and The Mother of All Deaf Souls. Some of the artworks in this exhibition are visual representations of the story.