Get Real: This Quadriplegic Woman Paints With Her Mouth

Refinery29

When a stray gunshot left Mariam Pare' paraplegic at age 20, she was afraid to miss out on the thing she loved most: painting. Through occupational therapy, she learned how to use a pencil and paintbrush with her mouth. For the past 19 years Mariam has painted portraits, series and commercial work as a mouth painter. Her creative process is full of trial, error and joyous discoveriesâ no different than a normally abled artist. She is a member of the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists, a member-owned association that reproduces its artists work for profit. Learn more about the MFPA at www.mfpausa.com. See more of Mariam's work at www.mariampare.com.

Transcript

00:00I was 20 years old and I was shot.

00:04The bullet had entered my spinal cord and made me a quadriplegic.

00:21I had lost the ability to paint with my hands.

00:24I'd lost the control to do the things that I loved.

00:31It was on my mind very much to try to find something from my former life that I could still

00:37do.

00:39I've been a mouth painter for 19 years.

00:43I kind of taught myself some of the same styles by the way I move my head and my neck.

00:52Wow, when I used my mouth to write my name, my signature was the same.

00:58It kind of made me feel like, oh, this art is inside me.

01:02My aesthetics, my sense of what movement is, the way I like my M's, it's in my brain.

01:10I may have lost the ability to do it with my hands, but it's inside me still and I just

01:14have to bring it out.

01:22I love it.

01:27That is very good.

01:28You always have this vision of yourself and who you are.

01:31I forget I'm in a wheelchair sometimes.

01:33I'm just Mariam.

01:36She said,

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