The Deaf Man's Sketchbook

Hewley is sitting in his study, bending down towards his desk, toiling away at his newest work. He’s sitting in a hunched over position, smudging the charcoal image he’d drawn, with his thumb. The canvas, spread upon an oak artist’s table, displays a depiction of a wedding - a bride and a groom, with their hands interlaced, but with few other features detailed. The picture is apparently currently incomplete.

Hewley’s paint-splattered denim overalls are hung loosely on his shoulders, laid atop a dirty white tshirt. The buttons are a bright tinge of gold and hold the straps firmly against his chest. The rightmost button is lightly coated with a green paint - dried from an old project in which he’d fallen from a ladder and had a bucket of paint poured upon him.

To Hewley’s left is Jana, a tall blonde woman, peering over his shoulder to marvel at his work. She’s wearing a similar outfit, with a paint-stained white cotton smock on top and a spotted pair of jeans underneath. Neither she nor her husband is wearing shoes on the smooth wooden floor of the art room, a luxury in their own home.

The walls of the office are plastered with other drawings. Some depict great battles; others show solemn or heartfelt emotional moments. The largest of these sketches is a scene of a woman holding a sleeping child in her arms in front of a fireplace. The woman’s composure and facial details imply she’s sorrowful - and the picture becomes significantly more sombre.

Hewley loved to do that - making pictures that made a viewer feel a particular way, then twisting that emotion into something else. In this case, moving a content satisfaction into a depressing longing, or a feeling of pity. This artistry was the easiest way for Hewley to portray emotions onto the world - being both mute and deaf, he only had the art of sight to communicate. Hewley can write and read, but nothing he could produce in writing would be more emotional and specific than the drawings he creates.

A window is open to the opposite side of Hewley, with the doored shutters opened outwards. The drapes around it flow inwards with a gentle breeze. The image of the outside world is masked mostly by the fluttering of these curtains, but a silhouette of the town outside leaks through the satin that surrounds the window.

The walls are almost entirely covered by images, with only the occasional scattered view of the stone brick behind them. Hewley felt the sight of the stone made the house feel cold - so he covered them with his art to make this space his own. Even now, the stone’s light grey is an eyesore to an otherwise lovely room painted in charcoal on paper.

The room is dyed a light shade of red, a signal of the fireplace behind them both, warming the room. Hewley and Jana’s backs are a dark blue, with the papers on the wall a faded orange.

But now, upon slightly closer inspection, it could be noted that the people in Hewley’s sketch seem remarkably visually similar to Hewley and Jana, who had married just two days prior.