Total hearing loss didn't block artist from B.F.A.

David McCormick worked as a furniture maker, served six years in the U.S. Navy and entered college as a non-traditional student. And on Saturday, he’ll join more than 1,300 fellow students as the newest graduates of SUNY Fredonia.

But what’s remarkable about this new phase of Mr. McCormick’s life –beyond going back to school in his 40s -- is earning a college degree without the benefit of hearing lectures by his professors, or even talking with students between classes.

Mr. McCormick experienced a catastrophic and complete loss of hearing two years ago, while enrolled at Jamestown Community College. Indeed, the diagnosis of Idiopathic Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss threw a mighty curve in the life of Mr. McCormick, now 46 years old, who has a wife and two children, but it didn’t stop him from earning an associate’s degree at JCC and then continuing his education at SUNY Fredonia.

And this weekend, he’ll clutch a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Visual Arts and New Media: Photography at Commencement.

A team approach at SUNY Fredonia combined with Mr. McCormick’s perseverance through some very tough times and the support of his wife, Anne, and two children, David II and Nicholas, helped make a college education a reality. The offices of Disability Support Services, Academic Information Technology and Academic Affairs worked closely with Mr. McCormick to develop communication systems to deliver lecture content, within a matter of seconds, to Mr. McCormick’s laptop computer, as he sat in a classroom, and to also clear other hurdles encountered along the way.

Mr. McCormick counts Stephen Komp and Elizabeth Lee, faculty members in Visual Arts and New Media, among his strongest supporters. They helped develop computer software to deliver course information, and worked with Mr. McCormick after class to make sure received the information that he needed. Sign language interpreters were also arranged for classes where a computer was not feasible.

Many students also pitched in. One of them was Kimberly Waite, who attended many of the same classes and spent considerable time writing down information, Mr. McCormick added.

“I was overwhelmed by the amount of support I received from everyone – faculty, staff and students. They made it all impossible to give up.”

Mr. McCormick extends endless praise upon his wife, a SUNY Fredonia graduate, who wouldn’t allow her husband of 28 years to slip into despondency. “She was very compassionate with me, and I think she could understand what I was feeling, but she would not let me give up,” he said.

At SUNY Fredonia, Mr. McCormick combined interests in photography, which he traces back to his fascination with 18th century photographs, and woodworking, which he learned from his grandfather.

“I love the emotion that the black and white photographs elicit, and I enjoy the process of developing my own images, and although I will always remain passionate about black and white photography, I have begun to openly embrace the overwhelming possibilities of digital photography.”

He enjoys all levels of woodworking, but takes the greatest satisfaction from developing an idea in his head and producing that idea with his hands. He’s worked at several cabinet shops and made hundreds of pieces of furniture, but likes creating single sculptures that are unique and maintain an aurora that cannot be duplicated.

Mr. McCormick’s most recent art work combines woodworking with photography and the pursuit of visual music, a term used in the art world for the last 100 years that refers to the conversion of musical structures into visual forms through mechanical methods, computer designs or an artist’s idiosyncratic representation of a particular rhythm.

“What I have done is to create a visual musical representation of a particular instrument, and then created an instrument to coincide with the imagery.”

Fifteen of Mr. McCormick’s pieces, including 11 photographs and four wood sculptures, were on display at the Senior Exhibit at the Rockefeller Art Gallery.

“I hope to draw an interest to my work and continue to develop more visual songs accompanied by my representation of musical instruments. Music is something that I miss, and I always will, but the art that I produce with photography and woodworking helps me fill that void. Fredonia has pushed me to explore new concepts and bridge two mediums that resulted in a concept I feel is new and exciting, and for the first time in four years, I now consider myself an artist.”