Month: June 2021

When my dictionary is released, I’m considering beginning research into remaking it as an app instead of a digital book. To ensure all the files remain up to date, I am taking all the ASL images made for advertisements and blogs and adding them to the dictionary in alphabetical order but in a separate section. This way when the time comes to make the second edition, all the words will be in place. The inspiration for this side project began during my remake of the corrupted B file, where I decided to add the newer image for the word Before. A task I technically didn’t need to do. What can I say, I’m very skilled at making things complicated when I try to make them simpler.

 

Many of the pictures in the book began as homework for my ASL classes. As I dedicated myself to the book and my studies, I started specific designs for specific groups. I chose Mimes to do the colors as they are known for not dressing in them and used clowns for emotions as these jesters have emotionally expressive faces. For the group of words regarding time, I started to draw Crash test dummies, a joke reference to the ASL for Dummies book forwarded to me by the library. I could understand my teacher’s initial confusion at that art choice because the word ‘dumb’ has a dark history of being a label falsely given to the deaf even after the word dumb had lost its meaning as the inability to speak.
To reference that was never my intention. The ASL words for time and dates exist as cartoon Crash Test Dummies to be non-intimidating guides to new topics, which is also the purpose of the For Dummies Books. The exception to this group is the ASL word for time, drawn as a cartoon of Canadian Astronaut Chris Hadfield per a friend’s request. Some other dummies escaped the group for other hand signs but the majority are there to teach seat belt safety and time.

When I first thought of naming my dictionary, I tried for a more poetic title than ASL Dictionary. Breaking the Sound Barrier was my first idea. A reference to how the visual language of ASL is free from the shackles of verbal communication and noise. My teacher was not impressed with that name which is good as that title belonged to another book. 2019 Breaking the Sound Barrier novel by Steve Smith and Gianfranco Conti, a book about language studies through trained listening.
I needed to step back to think of a better name. These cartoons began as doodles in my textbook. When I moved up to full colour illustrations, I was still drawing them for myself to help me with my ASL studies. These pictures were my own personal collection of ASL hand signs stored in a book. With my dictionary now a resource for other students learning, I named the book My ASL Dictionary in reference to its beginnings. A simple name fortunately not used by other titles in print or online.
When the Facebook page for my dictionary needed new cover art, I made a joke about a common question I heard about its title. After seeing the text in other ASL cartoons, I upgraded my character’s comments to be more educational by separating and enlarging the words shown in hand signs.

While working on the Shadow Pages for my ASL Dictionary, I discovered an ASL hand sign was missing, the word BILLION. The error might have occurred when the original B file was corrupted or a mistake on my part. In constructing a separate page for ASL Numbers, I moved the larger denominations from the central dictionary onto the numbers page. After transferring HUNDRED, THOUSAND, and MILLION to the page, there was no space left for BILLION. While this is an embarrassing error, it is fortunate that BILLION is such a rare number it is usually fingerspelled instead of signed.

After happily completing the second ASL word for BEFORE, I discovered to my shock the file for the letter B was corrupted and turned into an unknown format impossible to open! All ten pages of the 92 ASL words inside are locked away. Even though the work on my book is complete and in the hands of Tellwell Publishing, I will make another B file from scratch to keep the book’s files tidy. This crisis is yet another hurdle I’m pushing my Dell Computer through. Sigh, maybe this is why artists work with Apple instead.

The quickest way to lose a language is to stop your exposure. I have taken multiple classes in ASL now to regain the lessons I lost in the empty time between them. To keep a language requires more than just steady practice, you need to remain immersed in it and its culture. That was the message I wanted for my next ad. Already dressed for a deep dive, I took the ASL cartoon for Immerse and placed the character and her ASL tank underwater, surrounding her with floating pages of notes and the waving ASL hand sign for Fish with Goldfish inside the palms for fun.