Hearing aids are tools, and in a lot of circumstances they are incredibly helpful. I could make a long list about the pros of hearing aids and will do so soon. However, in just as many circumstances they are consistently utterly frustrating, limited, over-stated in what they claim to do, and mis-lead many people (especially the hearing) into thinking what they actually do. Hearing aids are not magic solutions that take away someoneโ€™s hearing loss, regardless of the degree of loss. Each case is very different. Thereโ€™s not a general one size fits all โ€œhearing lossโ€ and or โ€œgeneral hearing aidโ€ that works for anyone and everyone. Perhaps for those in denial, ah, maybe you have speculated this, and I truly understand. I was there for many years. I used the hearing aid trick as a solution for being in denial about being deaf. I used to tell myself, OK, if Iโ€™m wearing hearing aids then Iโ€™m not deaf, Iโ€™m โ€œhearing impairedโ€ (which is really a horrible term Iโ€™m so happy not to use again). This is not the case. First and foremost, with-out hearing aids I donโ€™t hear any sound at all. I can feel vibrations, but no sound. With the exception of, if you place your mouth on my ear directly and speak really loudly into it, I can โ€œfeelโ€ the vibration of the sounds and connect it to the movement of the mouth. Sometimes I can decipher those words. The reality is, Iโ€™m deaf, and with the use of hearing aid technology I become hard of hearing when I am wearing them. I use the term hard of hearing because Iโ€™m still missing over 50% of all sounds and auditory communication (which is actually always electronic and synthetic). With hearing aids, I am not hearing things the same way that a person with normal hearing hears. Iโ€™m not sure that I can even describe how I hear with hearing aids on a level of sound quality and texture but Iโ€™m going to try. I have memories of hearing analog music from the late 1970โ€™s. PS – I have a degenerative nerve loss so my hearing has deteriorated consistently over time. I believe I recall how that kind of music sounded back then through an analog radio at the time. It had a hollow kind of sound to it. Hearing aids seem to have perpetuated this kind of sound. So, its perpetually 1970โ€™s radio when Iโ€™m wearing aids..

2018, Digital Illustrations, Digital Art, Animated GIFs & Video. A continued series of manipulated electronic images and re-compositions. The many fragments and variations of each piece are visual representations for the missing of sounds, words and overall communication gaps I experience. They are intended to be both subtle, confusing and difficult to follow. A representation of the daily life I experience between the world of the hearing and the non.

Please check out my New Online Exhibition –> Communicating my Deaf & Hard of Hearing Self – Part 1