When one door closes to Li Mei, another one opens.
Born with severe hearing loss, Li has found her way to communicate with the world — through painting.
"Painting brushes can help me create a colorful world in my imagination, telling my thoughts on paper, instead of through voices," the 40-year-old painter from Changsha, Hunan province, writes in a typed response to China Daily.
Drawing was not only her way of coping with a lonely childhood, but has also become her lifelong career, according to Li.
Moreover, painting led Li to meet her husband Hu Shiqun at the Changsha Vocational and Technical School. Losing his hearing due to medication when he was 1 year old, Hu is also an art lover.
In 2016, Li joined her husband's company, which specializes in 3D wall and ground paintings. All the five painters there are hearing-impaired.
"I know how difficult it is for hearing-impaired people to find a job. So I want to help those who are passionate about painting to pursue their dreams," Hu says, adding that the company is more like a family.
In many parks and scenic spots in Hunan province, the couple have created large-scale murals and interactive pavement painting that make onlookers a part of the drawings.
During the National Day holiday in October, their pavement paintings attracted many visitors to pose over the "landscapes" of Zhaoshan Mountain scenic area in Xiangtan, Hunan.
Under their brushes, the pavements are transformed into fantastical scenes: fishes swimming in lotus ponds and rafts coursing down a river.
For Li, their creations can make art more accessible to the public and, behind each design, there is a humorous soul, who would like to connect with the world.
"My husband and I want to introduce painting to more people like us and help them find their own way to make a living," Li says. "I hope that more hearing-impaired people can be inspired by our story and try to realize their dreams."
Strength in silence
Before learning to paint in primary school, Li always felt lonely in a silent world. She knew she was different from her peers because she could not hear. But a painting class opened for her a door to creativity and a way of expression.
"Everyone has his or her own imaginative world. In this world, I can use my painting brush to convey what I think and want to express," Li says.
To pursue her passion in art, Li went to study advertising design at Changsha Vocational and Technical School. It was in class where she met her future husband.
"I still remember my first mural, which was to help a kindergarten to design and paint its wall," Li says. The project made her realize how happy she was immersing herself into painting.
Graduating from college in 2005, Li got a job as a typist at a public institute in Zhuzhou, Hunan.
It was a decent job in the eyes of her father, but Li was not happy because she could not communicate with other colleagues and the lonely feeling from childhood came back.
In nearly 10 years as a typist, Li seldom picked up her brushes and her husband knew she was not happy.
In March 2016, under her husband's suggestion, Li quit the job, although the move was strongly opposed by her father, and joined Hu's company to be a wall painter.
"I understand my father, who always worries that I will live an unstable life," Li says, adding that wall painting is a demanding job because it requires people to work outdoors, whether in extremely cold or hot weather.
As all the people are hearing-impaired, communication with clients is the most common challenge that the team faces.
"We communicate through typed words, which is slow and has caused us to lose some clients," Li says. Besides communication, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has also led to uncertainty with some projects.
Apart from that, Li is confident about the team's painting and design skills.
The company's 3D wall-painting artwork won first prize at a Hunan provincial competition for young entrepreneurs in 2016.
Colorful journey
Now Li has an apprentice who just graduated from college.
While coaching the newcomer, Li is exploring her own style and hopes to become an illustrator and open her own exhibition one day.
"Now my father's attitude has changed after seeing that I have my own career," she says.
Headquartered in Changsha, Li and her husband have a studio in Shanghai to seek more business opportunities.
Cao Yingjie is a Shanghai client of the wall-painting studio. He hired the team to paint street-style patterns on the surface of the stone counters of a grocery market in Baoshan district.
"They're energetic young people with a passion to create new things, and you can feel that in their paintings," Cao told a local news outlet. "They're also a professional, dedicated team, often working late into the night on the designs for us."
Like Li, an increasing number of people don't let their hearing impairment hinder their talent in art and make a living through their brushes.
On social media, there are many hearing-impaired people sharing their lives to fight bias, indicating that they can fully participate in social activities.
Although they are just a small number among the country's 27 million hearing-impaired population, Li hopes that their stories can inspire more people facing similar battles to build their own careers and achieve their goals, regardless of how tough it may be.
"Life can be challenging to the hearing loss community who are somehow excluded from conversations, but we are not alone, and we can find our way of expressing ourselves," the painter says.
