An impressive touch of 'genius'Lexington Herald-Leader November 2000
Deaf, blind man creates his own space in the world
Article by Barbara Isaacs
Photos by Jahi Chikwendiu
HERALD-LEADER STAFF
Jessie Dunahoo, who cannot see or hear, creates environmental sculpture. His artwork, which is designed to be erected as shelters, uses various materials including rope, string and plastic bags. JAHI CHIKWENDIU/ STAFF
Jessie Dunahoo is composing a stitched-together symphony of colorful plastic bags. The wall behind his work table at Minds Wide Open Art Center is covered with his creations, the smiley faces of Wal-Mart bags mingled with Kroger sacks and bags formerly home to loaves of wheat
bread.
But the artist cannot see the patterns or hear their delicate rustling. Dunahoo, who is in his late 60s, is blind and deaf, though he did have limited vision until his teen years.
Dunahoo creates what is known as environmental sculpture or installation art. His work is designed to be erected as shelters, something he used to do when he lived on his family's farm. These days, he lives in a Lexington group home.
Crystal Bader, assistant director of Minds Wide Open Art Center and a therapeutic recreation specialist, watched as Jessie Dunahoo communicated by tracing on his palm with his fingertip.
Three days a week, Dunahoo hunches over his work, attaching the bags with a straight basting-type stitch; sometimes he uses thread to knot and tie the bags together. Dunahoo threads the fine needles himself, by touch.
``Don't ask me how he does it,'' said Bruce Burris, director of the art center where Dunahoo has created his structures for the last two years.
``You can see how resourceful he is,'' said Crystal Bader, assistant director of the art center and a therapeutic recreation specialist.
Dunahoo doesn't speak, but he communicates with gestures, some sign language and by tracing letters, words and numbers into palms with his fingertip. Back in the Depression era, when Dunahoo grew up, special education wasn't common, at least not out in the country in Lee County near Beattyville, where he lived. Dunahoo spent most of his life working on his family's farm, living there into his 40s. He later lived in a nursing home and a group home in Berea before coming to Lexington a couple of years ago.
At the art center, Bader communicates with him the most. But even she can interpret only a small percentage of what he's trying to say; it's obvious that he has complex ideas that are beyond what he's able to communicate to others.
When asked about his work, Dunahoo makes signs and gestures about sun, rain, heat. ``He's saying it stops the water and rain,'' Bader said. ``He's talking about how it's a shelter.''
When Dunahoo is introduced, he touches the face, ears and hair of the people he's meeting so he can identify them later. He touches a photographer's camera, then pantomimes with his arms and wide eyes a surprised look, as if a camera's flash is going off.
Thread in mouth, Dunahoo worked on one of his environmental sculptures.
An `outsider' artist It's not clear whether Dunahoo views himself as an artist; Burris guesses that Dunahoo probably wouldn't consid
er his work to be art.But Dunahoo's creations have drawn interest and admiration from some in the local arts community. One of Dunahoo's large structures was displayed at Transylvania University's student art gallery in mid-September. That structure was designed as a dome; it was designed to drape rounded, a technically demanding feat.
Arturo Alonzo Sandoval, a University of Kentucky art professor, has called the elements of Dunahoo's creations ``as remarkable as a spider web,'' and used the word ``genius'' to describe Dunahoo's work.
``Jessie Dunahoo's art is most unusual for an `outsider' artist my definition because he is blind,'' Sandoval said. ``His creations are amazing, unique, colorful and environmentally helpful. It is difficult for me to imagine making one of his installations. The mere impossibility of first being unable to see the materials, yet alone being able to gather them and construct with them his wonderful pieces, puts Mr. Dunahoo in my `genius' category.''
Dunahoo, who cannot see or hear, uses string and plastic bags to create his installation art.Dunahoo's work and history even inspired a piece of dance and performance art.
Teresa Tomb, a local belly dancer and choreographer and one of the founders of Mecca: A Live Studio and Gallery in downtown Lexington, was intrigued by Dunahoo's work, but particularly by pictures of outdoor creations he had made earlier in his life.
According to what Burris has learned from Dunahoo's nephew, who is Dunahoo's guardian, Dunahoo has long crafted items outdoors. Most of Dunahoo's life, he lived and worked on his family's farm and there he cleared road-size pathways through the woods. He hung wire, rope and twine between the trees. ``Jessie used these as a means to navigate from one space to another in the forest,'' Burris said. And in the branches of the trees, he climbed and suspended all sorts of found items. He even made chairs and other furniture without tools or nails, by binding materials with rope, cord or plastic.
Tomb was amazed by the items that Dunahoo suspended from tree branches. ``The things up in the trees just looked like offerings to me,'' she said, listing items such as metal pie tins, bottles, half baguettes and fortune cookies. ``He was creating his space, and I really identified with that,'' Tomb said. ``That's all any of us does create our own space in the world.'' Tomb's performance art piece, Strung Along, was performed a year ago in conjunction with Minds Wide Open after Gallery Hop, an open house for local art galleries. Members of the audience represented the trees of Dunahoo's childhood, and they held a web of brightly colored ropes and strings. Eventually, Tomb's skirt, made of stitched together plastic bags, helped form the shelter.
That night, Tomb guided Dunahoo to one of the lines, which led him to the familiar enclosure.
``It was very amazing,'' Tomb said. Dunahoo touched the shelter and seemed surprised and pleased by what was there. ``He patted himself on the chest, like `This is me!''' she said.
``It's amazing to me, that a man who can't see or hear made these incredibly visual scenes,'' Tomb said. ``I could imagine what those metal pans and things sounded like in the wind. A man who supposedly doesn't have these senses created these things, which accentuated those senses.''
Said Burris: ``He has a rip-roaring imagination. Everything implied by shelter is what I'm getting. That's what makes his work so darn interesting. It's all about environment. My guess is that for him, it's about having control and empowerment by creating an environment.''
