Art Against All Odds

Art is a privilege. So many people around the world have had to, or still do, hide their art. But art is special. It’s different. It’s a part of us. And we won’t give it up.

Some people are lucky; making and sharing art is easy for them. It comes in the form of little doodles at the top of a loose-leaf piece of paper during a long lecture. It shows up when you tap your foot to the beat of a song you just can’t get out of your head. It’s even there when you’re cleaning and, mid-sweep; find yourself in the middle of a beautiful twirl as if you’re a ballerina.

For some people, though, art isn’t as easy. Art takes more time, is more difficult to do, more effort to create. Someone might have told these people that art just isn’t for them, that they should do something else with their time. They may have even believed those skeptics. But, that doesn’t mean they stopped doing it.

Today I’d like to highlight three artists who I recently became aware of who, against all odds, have created, or continue to create, something beautiful. These people are Mariusz Kędzierski, John Bramblitt, and Paul Smith.

At only 23-years-old, Mariusz Kędzierski is the youngest of my selected artists. He was born without hands, but that hasn’t stopped him from showing the world his artistic talent. Kędzierski started drawing when he was just 16 and hasn’t stopped since. He uses his arms to draw incredibly realistic pictures and portraits that take him hours to finish, but look as if they could be photographs by the time he is done. Mariusz Kędzierski is a self-taught artist who never ceases to amaze me. His work is truly something we’re lucky to see.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kb27YkdcIE

John Bramblitt overcomes a different challenge every time he goes to the easel. Bramblitt was born with vision, but lost his sight fully in 2001 after a series of epileptic seizures. For a lot of people, that would have been the end of their artistic careers, but for Bramblitt, his loss of sight was actually the beginning. Bramblitt has developed a few techniques to help him paint, but the most important is his use of raised lines on a canvas, which help him to navigate his paintings. He then uses either Brailed paint tubes or different textured oil paints to create full and vibrant paintings that seem to reflect the colors our emotions would show rather than our eyes. John Bramblitt is an incredibly inspiring man and artist. His work is an honor to see.

And last, but not least, is Paul Smith, the typewriter artist. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn about Paul Smith until after his death, which happened almost 10 years ago when he was 85; but that doesn’t mean I am unable to appreciate the beautiful art he made in this world. Smith was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy when he was a baby, which caused him to take more time to learn various tasks and fine motor skills. However, Smith figured out how to make art even with his difficulties. He adopted a typewriter as his paintbrush when he was just 11-years-old and continued to “paint” until he couldn’t anymore due to old age. Smith used symbol keys on the top row of his typewriter’s keyboard. He worked in black-and-white until colored typewriters were invented, taking weeks, even months, to create his pictures. His art is impressive from afar, but even more so when viewed up close so the symbols are seen. While Paul Smith may not still be living, his art surpasses his life and continues to inspire. We are privileged to have the chance to see it.

Of course, these are not the only artists worth mentioning, but they are the artists I have chosen to highlight. All of these people did not see their disabilities as endings, but as opportunities to create beauty. Humans are amazing creatures, and they helped to prove that. These incredible people remind me, and I hope you, too, that art is inside us all, just waiting to come out. All we have to do is find our way, and we can all be artists.