Frank Buffalo Hyde, an Indigenous artist who’s been featured at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian and other museums across the United States, was born with one arm and one leg due to a birth defect after his father was exposed to Agent Orange.
In this episode of “Enable: The Disability Podcast,” he speaks about the use of prosthetics and other resources, the ways he tried to avoid feeling different as a child, and the healing power of humor and pop culture in his colorful artwork. Other topics include Bigfoot, Sasquatch, UFOs and cryptozoology, plus the reality TV competition he appeared on.
“For me, I came into the art scene and became a professional artist at a time where I had to fit into a world that wasn’t necessarily made for me so I didn’t necessarily let my disability define me,” Hyde says. “People would find out later when I sign my work and… [be] pretty shocked. And a lot of people would ask me, you know: ‘Are you left-handed?’ (laughs) I’m like, ‘Yes.’”
For more about Hyde, an Onondaga/Niimíipuu (Nez Perce) painter who was born in New Mexico and largely grew up on the Onondaga territory near Syracuse, visit his website: frankbuffalohyde.com…