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.
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