as an artistic form of signing

I would start with the manual alphabet and fingerspelling. With fingerspelling you have the entire language just by spelling everything you want to say. You're really slow but you have it all. Then move on to signs.

Sign language definitely has euphemisms and signs for vulgar terms. Fingerspelling is not used for all vulgarities.

Barbara E. Babbini has written:

'Manual communication; fingerspelling and the language of signs'

Fingerspelling is used for several reasons. Fingerspelling is traditionally used to spell out titles of works (such as book titles or names of movies or names of telivision programs, plays etc.), names of people or places that don't have signs, or other words that may not, yet, have a sign in American Sign Language. Fingerspelling may also be used for clarification, so that the other person understands what is being said. Furthermore, fingerspelling may be utilized by people with limited knowledge of American Sign Language Signs to spell out words that they do not know the proper sign for. For example a beginning ASL signer may sign "WHAT SIGN FOR T-O-M-A-T-O?" To which may be responded with a sign showing the answer to the question.