Originally, this was an illustration I created for a children’s book. The story was about a little girl who is deaf and the difficulty she had in having a relationship with her hearing, older brother.

As it turns out, no one wanted to see this book published. The problems with it: “Why does she have to be deaf?” And when I showed this to someone inside the deaf community, the problem was, “Well, but you’re not deaf.” The idea was that as a hearing person, I was somehow appropriating deafness to make money on another culture.

Not wanting to give up on Sarah, my little protagonist, I changed the story so that she was a hearing person. I just didn’t like it as much. Yes, it was more accessible. I just didn’t care about a story between siblings where their only divide was an age gap. So what?

But here, as a print on all sorts of neat things, I can share my crafts-loving, little Sarah – who is deaf. Or hearing. You decide.

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