PATTI DURR

"Sunrise, Sunset" expresses the full circle mom and i are traveling - as my mom and my world she raised me to accept and love myself as a partially Deaf person - freely and easily repeating things for me all day everyday and now it is my as mom has Alzheimer's and repeats and needs repeating. Unconditional love is everlasting. Thank you to Anthropology of Motherhood for recognizing and promoting the importance of care and caring in societies.

I am our mom's primary caregiver. Mom came to live with us two weeks after COVID 19 broke out because she started to wander at her independent living setting as she could not understand or remember to stay in her apartment and her three meals would be delivered to her instead of going down to the communal dining room. I retired early so mom could stay with us and get the attention and care she deserves and while it has been a wild ride - I feel very blessed to have this time with her.

This work represents my relationship with my mother - the sunrise section shows my mother as her younger self and me as a young child - mom has dots on her hands (to show she used a lot of Italian gestures with me) and their are faint dots between mom and I to show how mom was the carrier of language - how she worked diligently to make sure I understood and was understood. As a partially Deaf child - I was often trying to understand what was happening around me and mom ensured that I always did when she was around. I have gold leaf on my chest area to show my heart to show I have her unconditional love.

The sunset portion shows me as an adult and mom as an elderly person with. I have dots on my hands and there are dots in between us to show how my signing helps mom as her Alzheimers progresses and she looses more and more of her spoken words. She has gold leaf on her chest to show how she has my unconditional love.

There are torn colorful fragments encircling us - for the cycle of life and some fait gold dots to show how we are all connected. The black corners represent the unknown.

PDurr 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.