[00:00:00] Pam Uzzell: Do you believe art can change the world? So do I. On this show, we meet artists whose work is doing just that. Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds. I'm your host, Pam Uzzell.
[00:00:47] Coming up in just a few days is my mother's birthday. She would have been 93. Hearing this voicemail from Paige Friend about her own mother really just got me right in the heart. It's such perfect commemoration of her mom.
[00:01:09] Paige Friend: Pam, it's Paige Friend from The Beach Speaks podcast. I've been thinking about the concept of belonging and I thought I would share something from my mother's point of view because she was my greatest example of how to find your way in the world when you feel like you stick out like a sore thumb, as she would say.
[00:01:30] And because she was a professional artist, I guess it kind of goes with the theme of your podcast. My mother Ginny was deaf. Well, not completely deaf at first. Growing up, she could hear herself and others speak well enough, and what she couldn't hear, she just adapted to by learning how to read your lips.
[00:01:53] So, she was able to hide it from everyone so people wouldn't think she was different. She graduated from college, barely, and said she felt dumb because she was always having to ask her classmates to borrow their notes because she couldn't watch the professor speak in class and take notes at the same time.
[00:02:14] And she was never really able to find a job because she couldn't really get by without being able to hear. I didn't even know she couldn't hear until I was in elementary school when I noticed that sometimes people would speak and I'd have to repeat back to her what they said. I could tell it embarrassed her, but to me, well, that was just my mom.
[00:02:41] When I learned just how much she relied on reading people's lips and how good she was at it, I thought it was really cool. Like, we could be on the opposite end of a room and as long as she could see my mouth moving, I could just mouth the words without saying. them out loud and she would know exactly what I was saying.
[00:03:04] It was like we had this secret language. But then other times people would think she was ignoring them because if she wasn't looking at them directly and they were asking her a question and she didn't answer, they didn't understand and she sometimes would misunderstand the punchline of a joke because she didn't really understand all that led up to it.
[00:03:31] And then there were the times when I'd say something like, what time is it? And she'd say, I don't know, I think it's going to rain. And we'd laugh about that, but I'm sure on the inside she felt mortified and even more like she didn't belong. Until she started painting. You don't have to know how to hear to paint, right?
[00:03:55] She started with a painting class in an art studio nearby and apparently she was pretty good. And even a print of one of her paintings was featured in an issue of 'Ladies Home Journal' in the 1970s sometime. After a while, she stopped painting and she started silkscreen printing and that's where she really thrived.
[00:04:23] I think that's where she really felt she belonged. She joined art guilds and co ops and soon her work was in galleries and shows and To be a part of that art world was a really big deal for her because she was no longer Ginny who couldn't hear. She was Ginny the artist. But to me, she was just mom.
[00:04:50] Pam Uzzell: You're listening to Art Heals All Wounds.[00:05:00]
[00:05:20] Thank you to Paige Friend for leaving this voicemail. Paige has a beautiful podcast called The Beach Speaks, which I've had the honor to be on as a guest. I'll leave a link to The Beach Speaks in the show notes. I'm loving sharing the voicemails I've received so far. If you want to share your story of belonging, please just go to my website.
[00:05:41] arthealsallwoundspodcast. com and leave your story in a voicemail. While you're there, if you want to support the podcast with a small donation, you can click the buy me a coffee link and leave a little something. Believe me, every little bit helps. Thanks for listening. The music you've heard in this podcast is by Ketsa and Lobo Loco.
[00:06:07] This show was recorded using Squadcast FM.