He was a musician.

Then Burl Norville started losing his hearing. He noticed it first in his right ear while using a four-track recorder and headphones. Eventually, he lost all hearing in his right ear. He thought that was the end of it. As a musician, losing hearing in one ear is devastating, but he still had the use of his left.

Then he started developing tingling and numbness on the right side of his face, coupled with dizziness and nausea.

He went from doctor to doctor, most of whom concluded that his symptoms were the result of external factors.

All except one. Norville’s symptoms were concerning enough that he ordered a rushed MRI.

And that’s when they found brain tumors on both of Norville’s balance nerves. The tumor on his right side was more than 6 centimeters in diameter – the size of a lemon.

By the time he was 30, Norville was profoundly deaf in both ears.

“I had a very devoted and passionate relationship with music and songwriting most of my life, and I performed with bands until I couldn’t do it anymore due to my hearing loss,” he said. “Going deaf as a songwriter and musician was an absolutely devastating experience, and I was forced to gradually learn to express myself creatively in other ways.”

VISUAL ART: THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT

Norville’s grandma once grabbed a shovel and started digging a hole in her yard. She buried half a bike in the hole, leaving the top half exposed, which she painted white – “just to ‘decorate’ the yard,” Norville said.

It was Granny’s way of expressing her artistic soul, and she wasn’t going to let anyone’s assessments of her art stifle her vision. Instead, she did her own thing, like hanging colorful Easter eggs from fishing line in bushes to add a pop of color.

“Her approach toward art was playful and void of self-consciousness,” Norville said. “It was genuine and joyful, like the creations of a child.”

He also grew up watching his dad work on charcoal and ink drawings Norville said looked like photographs. He reveled in his dad’s technical skills and savored Granny’s confidence as an artist.

And in that way, Norville said, art was the “lowest hanging fruit.”

“Visual art, having always had a place in my life, even if in the background, was another way to do it,” he said. “So it was moved from the background to the forefront, and I slowly assigned it a new value in my life.”

Norville’s first taste of selling his art was in Austin, Texas. It was in 2006, and some of his friends owned a gallery; Austin Art Garage.

They urged him to show his art.

“I was doubtful of my abilities as an artist to produce works that people wanted to actually spend their money on,” he said. “My friends persisted in asking me though, and I finally, quite nervously, gave them a few pieces to try.”

Within the first week, his pieces sold. And with each piece that sold, Norville said, he gained more confidence.

Perhaps it was Granny’s conviction rubbing off.

A LITTLE HOPE

Earlier this year, while searching the internet from his home in Port Townsend, Norville “chanced upon an opportunity.”

“I was looking for something to dedicate my creative time to for a few weeks, seeing as how the cold, wet winters here can be an indoor, thumb-twiddling affair,” Norville said.

What he found was a Seattle Office of Arts & Culture call for artists. Each year, the organization awards grants to Washington artists who create temporary public art installations in Seattle parks. 

“Finding this seemed like a situation that was well-tailored for me, so I gave it a chance,” he said. “I honestly didn’t expect to be awarded the grant, but I wanted to give it a good try. So I worked hard for a few weeks on my proposal, submitted it, and remained doubtful but hopeful until the date they announced the awardees.”

In July, Norville will set up his art project in Cal Anderson Park near the fountain in the Capitol Hill area – a park he chose for several reasons, the main being DeafThrive, a large deaf event, takes place there in August.

Norville’s installation incorporates American Sign Language. He will build four large letters that spell out “Hope.” In the background, along with the finger-spelled handshapes, will be the word “hope” in 65 languages. The installation will look distressed, he said, and the smaller words will not be noticeable from a distance. Norville’s goal is to incorporate surprise, unity and education.

“I like art that isn’t overly complicated – easy to digest aesthetically, with just enough detail to make it interesting,” he said. “That is the kind of art I am most comfortable making. So I wanted the word to fit the style, but also be a word that was based on something we really need in order to simply get us out of bed in the morning.

“‘Hope’ isn’t a preachy or demanding word either, and I like the simplicity yet positive vagueness of it. I want the public to feel good when they see it, but they will have to define for themselves what ‘hope’ means to their lives.”

Hope means something different to Norville now than it used to.

“Now it would apply more specifically to acceptance and appreciation for where I am and what I have,” he said. “Because, at least from what I have experienced, those genuinely ‘better places’ that the word implies seem to more easily arrive when acceptance for where I am, and gratitude for what I have, are a sincere part of my mentality.”

JUST AN ARTIST

Norville doesn’t define himself as a deaf artist. Simply put, he’s an artist.

“Labels can be helpful, but they are a slippery slope too,” he said. “In the end, I am just an artist, and I wouldn’t allow any label to define what I do or how I do it.”

Even so, being seen as a “deaf artist” makes him proud in a way. The process was painful. What he lost was devastating. Yet, through hardships and heartbreak, Norville has found hope.

“It is taking the source of something I once thought of as very painful to me, losing my hearing, because of the artistic relationship with music that is severed, and now, after almost two decades of hard work within that deaf experience, wearing it as a badge of honor,” he said. “I discovered a whole culture of wonderful, colorful people within that place that I once thought of as pain. I have had, and continue to have, beautiful connections and relationships with people. Not despite my deafness but because of it.”

The downside of being labeled a deaf artist, Norville said, is the sympathy it conjures.

“Sympathy isn’t good for anyone involved, and I don’t want it.”

Norville’s art can be seen on his website, burlnorville.com.