“As a visual artist, I have created works in words (scriptwriting), film (directing), and teaching. To create visual art, and all by myself is challenging to me. The solitary vs. collaborative nature requires more courage than the other works I’ve done.” - Patti Durr
Patti Durr is a mixed media artist, filmmaker, and playwright. As an Associate Professor in the Cultural and Creative Studies Department for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology, Patti received the Eisenhart Award for outstanding teaching. Durr was one of the founders of Lights On!, a community theatre company committed to dramas about the deaf experience, and served as artistic director for several years. She wrote the play, META, about a deaf Jewish survivor of the Holocaust being befriended by an African-American college student, which was produced by NTID and Lights ON! in 1993. She was also artistic director of the first Deaf Rochester Film Festival (DRFF) in 2005.
Her filmmaking career has also been greatly focused in serving the deaf community by creating educational films for NTID/RIT intended to educate deaf youths on the pressing issues facing them today such as a monologue on sexual violence and an HIV/AIDS prevention video. She has also made a couple narrative films entitled, “Don't Mind,” “Page Me,” and a documentary entitled “Exodus” about a deaf Jewish family escaping the Holocaust.
After the encouragement of a faculty colleague and curator of the Mythology Images Exhibit at the Dyers Art Center at National Institute for the Deaf in Rochester, Durr contributed visual art pieces to the exhibition. Durr attributes her inspiration for the pieces to collage and multimedia artists Romare Bearden, Betye Saar and Betty G. Miller. Her piece entitled “And There Was Light” is of a small old door that has images within the windows of the structure. The top six windows have the words 'We live to eat/ we eat to live' inscribed on what seems to be a chalkboard. The bottom half of the piece is a painting of a woman surrounded by blue flowers in two windows above the woman and a monarch butterfly in the center window above the woman. She is depicted coming out of the sky with a large sun to the right of the figure. The woman is handing a colorful and detailed hand to a dark, blurry faced figure with an arm extended out that is naturally colored. The collages offer a sense of hope to those incapable of communicating outside visual means or are in a dark place. The incorporation of vibrant colors offers a symbol of light and hope. The dark coloring of the chalkboard and the phrase as well as the dark image in the bottom left corner are symbolic of the experiences many deaf persons have. With Durr's great ability to communicate visually, her work is a great contribution to the artistic and deaf community alike. Although she describes the task of creating visual art as difficult, her creation of an artwork like “And there was Light” communicates a clear visual message to the viewer, one as clear as written words.
