“Speaking” to life through painting

Draw to love life

Artist Van Y (74 years old), the founder of the drawing class, recounted that one time he saw the children wandering around doing all kinds of jobs on the street. When he asked them, he found out they were deaf and mute. He used signs and wrote on a piece of paper: "Do you want to learn to draw? Come here and I will train you, it's free."

At first, there were 4-5 students, but later they liked it and loved drawing so much that they spread the word, and the class grew to more than 20 people. Up to now, this drawing class has been maintained for more than 8 years, under the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Association. The majority of the students in the drawing class are deaf and mute, around their teens and twenties, some of them go to special schools or work to make a living, and can only gather every Saturday.

It costs nothing here, everything from canvas, paint, brushes… is provided. Sometimes the expenses are partly supported by benefactors, however, most of the time teachers and students “take care of it themselves”. There are several art exhibitions each year, 25% of the money from selling the paintings is used to maintain the class, 50% goes to the students and 25% goes to charity.

Passionate drawing atmosphere in class every Saturday

Mr. Van Y named the class “Sound of Painting”, meaning that through painting, deaf-mute students can hear themselves and have a way to express their feelings, joys, and even frustrations on their paintings. Because the only way to communicate is through sign language, even when writing, their vocabulary is very limited. Therefore, painting is a tool for others to “hear” their “voices”. That is also the main goal of the class: not to learn to paint to become a famous painter, but to learn to be closer to the people around them, to be able to love life and especially “to have more aesthetic knowledge so that when they go out into the world they will be less disadvantaged”.

Nguyen Huynh Kim Ngan, 18 years old, took out her phone and introduced herself: “Hello, I have been studying drawing in class for a year. I really like colors and want to draw things around me that I see and feel. I have drawn many beautiful paintings, and they have been bought by benefactors, so I am very happy.”

Open your mind through paintings

The class took place almost quietly, without any talking but still full of joy. Here, everyone speaks the same sign language so you can communicate and have fun together... At first, the biggest obstacle was that the teacher did not understand the students so it was difficult to approach, but "after a while, he became used to it", now the teacher "waves his hand" as clearly as the students.

A rather special thing about this class is that the students rarely miss class, because they are so addicted to drawing. In the class, there is a young man nearly 30 years old with autism. Every night before going to school, he stays up all night, feeling nauseous, pacing around the house waiting for his mother to take him to school in the morning. When he comes to class, he talks nonstop, even though he hasn’t spoken to anyone at home for a whole week, he is eager to say “Hello teacher”, “Hello teacher”, get paint, get water, clean things… take care of his friends. His mother shared: thanks to knowing how to draw and meeting people with the same disabilities, my son “releases” his stress, and gradually becomes less autistic.

Wherever the young people go, they are sociable. Once, they were sponsored to go on a vacation in Phan Thiet, where there was a deaf-mute Russian couple who stayed there for a whole week without speaking to anyone. Yet the whole class “recognized” them and quickly cheered them up, inviting them to go sightseeing and swimming. When they went to Da Lat, the students also found and connected with them, visiting another group of deaf-mute young people who worked as bartenders at a coffee shop.

From the time I first started studying until I reached the level of having paintings that could be sold, it took at least a year. When I heard the teacher say, “25% of the money from selling paintings will be used for charity,” the student refused: “That’s not possible, we are also handicapped, teacher!” The teacher thought, “Take it slow, lead us gradually and we will understand.”

“It was the first charity event, supporting the Association of the Blind in Binh Thuan Province. The blind people had a talent for singing, performing some very good songs, but only the teacher could… hear them. The deaf-mute painting class saw the people singing and also danced signs enthusiastically to respond, but the blind people… couldn’t see. Yet, with some special sense, the two sides felt each other, at the end of the trip everyone hugged each other goodbye, which made me very touched,” shared artist Van Y.

Nguyen Ngoc Quy, born in 1993, has been studying in the class for 8 years. Quy shared: “Thanks to drawing, I have learned to love nature and people more. I try to become a professional artist, have my own gallery, and from there I will help disabled friends like me.”

KIND HEART

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/noi-voi-doi-nho-hoi-hoa-post799412.html