DE'VIA DEAF ART FESTIVAL

CHUCK BAIRD
Chuck Baird was born in 1947, as a baby boomer, he was born with moderate deaf, grown up as culturally deaf while attended the deaf residential school in Kansas. He went to study both at Gallaudet College and National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID). After received his BFA in Rochester Institute of Technology 1974, he spent 5 summers at the National Theatre of the Deaf (NTD) painting their sets. During these years, he held a variety of jobs developing his art in upstate New York and Delaware before he joined Spectrum, the deaf art colony Texas. In 1980, he joined the NTD for the next 10 years as an actor and did some set designs. For the more artistic opportunities, he left the NTD to live nomadically in California and Arizona. He has performed at some Equity theaters. He also worked for DawnSignPress as an in-house artist, and painted a number of first deaf-related works, culminating in the coffee table book. He went back to Kansas City and moved again to Tucson setting up his own painting studios. During time, he has often traveled to paint murals or lead art workshops for deaf children at schools, summer camps, and at art festivals. He had his works known for the genre called Deaf View Image Art (De’VIA) in numerous art exhibits here and oversea over last 12 years. He was summoned to Gallaudet to help coordinating the visual arts exhibitions for Deaf Way II in 2002 and went back there again teaching art for one semester.
He has depatured our world and we are pleased to honor him at De'VIA Gala this upcoming June. In hopes to continue his legacy and supporting his foundation to benefit emerging Deaf Artists.
To learn more about him, please visit his website: http://www.chuckbairdart.com