CREDIT: COURTESY OF ADAM D. KEARNEY
This section of Adam's essay touches on the origin of Hand Cut Prints and their relationship with childhood friend Josh.

This article is Part Four in a series of excerpts from Fanshawe grad Adam D. Kearney’s essay, Grief & Eugenics: An Ableist Horror Story.

Hand Cut Company

Previously on my so-called life, I lamented about how I identify with the myth of Sisyphus in relation to existing as a person with disability in our capitalist society. Particularly with my search for employment in a field I paid a college far too much to be a part of and coming upon one ableist roadblock after another. All in an attempt to escape the challenging life brought on by abysmal government assistance programs. Something I really didn’t touch on in my last essay was my reluctance to exploit my disability for financial gain. Surely, I had more to offer this world than my stories. There are frighteningly few options available currently for people in my situation. The more I thought about what would be my breaking point for applying for MAiD (Medical Assistance in Death), the more time I spent thinking of ways to navigate using my disability to make money that didn’t make me physically ill. I was really stuck on feeling like I was having to exploit myself by using my disability to make money.


During a rough patch of 2018, which I will get into more detail later on in this essay, I found myself in need of a creative outlet. I started a side hustle called Hand Cut Prints. The name is a cheeky take on the fact that I am a natural born klutz. Every time I would cut out a stencil to spray paint, or carved a lino block to print by hand, I always managed to accidentally cut myself. The name also worked because being a klutz and a wheelchair user I often smashed my hands off of doors, walls, chairs, and pretty much anything.

A good friend of mine got me in with the Punk Rock Flea Market crowd in London. I was moving through a lot of emotional stuff at the time, and so I went on to be the grumpy guy in the corner trying to sell felt pennants with stenciled curse words on them. Needless to say, the reception was lukewarm, and so Hand Cut Prints slipped into hibernation. Though, I still have a STACK of pennants in a plastic bin under my bed, so if you need one slide into my DMs.

Fast forward to fall 2021, having gotten sober during the pandemic and being bored to death I once again needed a creative outlet. This time when I brought back the side hustle I was making more than just prints so I “rebranded” to Hand Cut Company. Now because graphic design freelance work was hard to come by, the side hustle had become almost equally, if not more, financially important.

By late November 2022 I had vended at nine markets and I was stressfully preparing to be at two large holiday markets in one weekend. This was just the beginning of three back-toback weekends of holiday market vending that I had ahead of me. I was stressed, nervous and anxious, but I was also really excited about how things were going. Over those nine markets, I really started connecting with folks and realized there was space for me to start bringing in some disability justice content. It started with Anti-Ableism stickers, then patches, then antifa wheelchair symbol with the tagline “this machine kills fascists.” For the holiday season I partnered with a local fibre artist with disability and had a batch of red and black “Company Toques” made. The best part is I paid her what she would sell it for (not wholesale cost) in cash so her ODSP wouldn’t be affected. Hand Cut Company was becoming a proud company with disability.

The biggest piece I had prepared for this holiday string of markets was my zine The Myth of Sisyphus with Disability. It was the first time I had written something so open, honest and specific about my experience with disability. My anxiety was through the roof about how it might be received, even though my friends who edited it had nothing but fantastic things to say about it. Lost in a world of mixed emotions, a Facebook message instantly cut through the noise and stopped me in tracks.

“Hey, sorry for the very abrupt message. Josh is not doing well health-wise it is anticipated that he may die this weekend. If you were interested in sending him a final message, his sister would read it to him or play an audio message. Here is the phone number…”

JOSH

Josh and I met at a very early age as campers at Woodeden Easter Seals camp just outside of London. Recently, when I watched the Oscar nominated (robbed by that damn octopus movie) Crip Camp on Netflix, I was shocked to see just how similar my experience of camp was…minus the crabs outbreak and social justice revolution, of course. The counsellors were there to help with personal care and they also often became friends of ours. I learned about George Carlin, Noam Chomsky, Propagandhi, Carl Jung, Karl Marx and my guitar playing kept getting better and better all thanks to a handful of counsellors that truly left a mark on my life. Though, it was the connections I made with my fellow campers that were most important – even though I didn’t realize it until 30 years later.

I don’t remember exactly how we met, or what nonsense we initially bonded over, but it was very much that stereotypical camp friendship that is often depicted in books and movies. We ate breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks together. Josh, and his younger brother David, were diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy which is a genetic disorder where the body’s muscles slowly degenerate. This really didn’t mean anything to me at the time, just that I would often lend Josh a hand reaching for things or filling his plate. We had a pact that whoever arrived first at camp would make sure our beds were on the same side of the cabin so we could stay up and talk all night. We would talk about what boys talk about, what we thought boobs felt like, celebrities we had crushes on, and who we wanted to ask to go to the dance with. We would eventually plan elaborate ruses so we could sneak off from the watchful eyes of our counselors to get our first kisses from our girlfriends. Disability was rarely the focus of our conversation, because it was just part of our shared life experiences. There was just an unspoken understanding between us that was lost on other people.

To be continued…

This memoir essay was published as a zine in Jan. 2023. If you enjoy it and feel you would like to support the author, you can find a pay what you can PDF or purchase a physical copy at handcutcompany.com.