Anthony (Tony) Giordano, a DeafBlind artist, was the star of his debut gallery exhibit at Loves Art Gallery, located at 50 Hill Street in Southampton, NY here recently, and sold his first piece of art, a larger-than-life-sized hand made of copper pipes, titled “I Love You,” to artist and collector Jennifer Contini for $1,000.
Tony was born in Brooklyn, NY and made a career as a trained auto mechanic, working for nearly 30 years in a variety of autobody shops on luxury car types including Tesla, Mercedes Benz, Land Rover, Porsche and Ferrari. He holds 12 certifications in welding.
Tony lost his sight due to diabetes in 2018. He is currently a participant at Helen Keller Nation Center, located in port Washington, NY, where he is learning skills for employment, independent living, communication, adaptive technology, and creative arts. Working with his art teacher, Antonia Isnardi. Tony has found a new passion for art, especially sculpture.
Although he has lost use of his sight, he hasn’t lost his creative vision, and enjoys using his welding skills to create sculptures made of copper and a variety of other materials. He communicates via tactile sign language, where he grips the hands of an interpreter to sign his questions and responses.
Tony describes his three sculptures as:
“I Love You Sign”
“The beautiful woman came to Helen Keller. Her name is Inny. She is from England. I met her at the tech room. I asked her about American Sign Language. She didn’t know American Sign Language, so I taught her ASL. I showed her the sign for “I love you”. She asked me ‘what does that mean?’ I said the sign means “I love you”. I made her laugh. So I made the copper statue.”
“Robot Hand”
“When I was little, I watched “The Addams Family” in 1970’s. I loved to watch the black box with lid open and the hand pops up. But the hand can’t walk. I had an image of the hand. I was thinking about the hand. I got idea how to make like a robot the robot hand. Can run about 150 MPH. So I made the copper hand. This is called Robot Hand. It looks like a robot. The robot hand can do hand spell, high jump, fastest run and I always thinking of the robot hand.”
“Robot Jaws”
“When I was in Mexico. I worked for a fisherman. My friends and I were on the big boat. I did the sewing for the net and had to dive with my scuba gear in the water. When I came up and out of the water I was sitting on the back of the boat and saw something move. It was a shark that thought I was a seal. My friend grabbed me, and I kicked the shark away. Later I had bad dream about shark. I was in the water and saw a gold shark. When I woke up I remembered the dream and went to art class and made the sculpture out of copper. I named it Robot Jaws after the gold shark.”
Photo of Jennifer and Tony with “I Love You” sculpture attached. More photos, credit Helen Keller Services, here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1qwvGg5JclCTb98AlPuw9rAH-c21bCZmH?usp=share_link
About Helen Keller Services:
Helen Keller Services (HKS), a national non-profit working with individuals who are blind, have low vision, are DeafBlind and/or have combined hearing-vision loss to live, work and thrive in their community of choice. HKS offers services and programs through two divisions: Helen Keller National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults and Helen Keller Services for the Blind. For more information, please visit www.helenkeller.org.
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