Lindsey Row-Heyveld is one of nine winners of the 2024 Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities. This award is designed to support accessibility in the arts and celebrate the exceptional work of disabled Midwestern visual artists.
“I am a calligrapher; text is as vital a medium to me as paint or ink. I’m interested in both the aesthetic qualities of words and their textual meanings, and I intend that the way words are presented visually and the meaning they contain speak with one voice. I am influenced by the palette and patterns of Amish and Mennonite quilts; by the geography of the Great Plains, where I grew up, and the Driftless Region of the upper Midwest, where I live now; and by historic folk lettering. As a disabled artist, I find in calligraphy a place where my neurodivergence can flourish. I see myself as an interpreter: I take a work of art in one medium (typically poetry) and translate it into another. My purpose is to create greater access to the text, allowing viewers/readers to experience it differently than they would printed on a white page. I want to open the text, break it apart, and reveal its facets. But more than that, like a singer covering another songwriter’s work, I want to express the text and make it mine.“