Painting beyond limits

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: Today is Thursday, May 1st.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Myrna Brown.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: finding purpose through perseverance.

Painting isn’t easy, even in ideal situations. But for two artists in Australia, the challenge is much more than picking out color and canvas.

BROWN: WORLD correspondent Amy Lewis brings us their remarkable stories of creativity against the odds.

DOSSETOR: It was really just complacency that got me. I was coming in to land on a good day, you know, easy conditions.

AMY LEWIS: Geoff Dossetor is a world champion hang glider. He’s spent thousands of hours in the air and won two World Cup events plus several national championships. His longest flight lasted nearly 6 hours.

DOSSETOR: And eventually I had my own business…and that was all going really well.

He took customers on short tandem flights from the top of New Zealand’s Coronet Peak to his property below. In 2001, he was newly married. Seven weeks after his daughter’s birth, he took a last-minute customer up for a flight.

DOSSETOR: And at the end of the flight, I thought, I'll give my passenger a bit of a thrill. And did some aerobatics, as we often do, and, often did, I should say…

That last maneuver left them flying lower than usual and over his neighbor’s property. In an attempt to get back over the fence, Dossetor and his passenger crash-landed into a streambank.

DOSSETOR: Either his hand or his elbow swung through and hit me in the back of the neck, and yeah, I just suddenly couldn't feel anything, and had my face in the grass, and I said, ‘Oh, are you okay?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ I said, ‘Well, don't move me, because I think I've got a spinal injury.’

Dossetor has spent the last 24 years in a wheelchair.

DOSSETOR: I can't feel anything from my chest down and, and my hands and my wrists don't work…I used to be right handed.

Not long after the accident, Dossetor planned to move to Melbourne so his parents could help him raise his young daughter. Before he did, he went on an adventure week for people in wheelchairs. There he met a student member of the organization Mouth and Foot Painting Artists.

DOSSETOR: He showed me some of his work, and I thought, that's pretty good. I reckon I could do something like that. And he sort of told me what I needed to do.

MFPA, as it’s known, works with artists all over the world. It turns their art into cards that it sells unsolicited through the mail. The money provides income and scholarships to help disabled artists get more artistic training. So Dossetor painted six paintings and mailed them off. He’s had monthly income from a student scholarship ever since.

Before the accident, he sometimes illustrated hang gliding articles with cartoons but that was the extent of his art. He didn’t need it because hang gliding was all-consuming to him. Now, painting gives him purpose and a meaningful pursuit.

DOSSETOR: There's not a lot I can do with my disability, physically. So this is something that I can do, and I can do it reasonably well.

Another artist who paints for the MFPA is Pam Farey.

She lives in Linton in rural Victoria.

FAREY: It was called chronic relapsing peripheral motor neuropathy.

She was diagnosed almost 40 years ago. She stretches her permanently curled fingers over the gear shift and steering wheel to drive to her temporary studio a few minutes from her house.

FAREY: With all the rain we've had, I wasn't sure. Oh, we can go the other way. We might go down the other way. Here's the hut, and there's some of my darlings over there. And there'll be a whole lot of kangaroos just over here.

Yeah, so this is Little Big Hill Sanctuary. So this is the hut. There’s some crazy stuff in here. But anyway, that's me. I'm a bit crazy. This is the hut…

Her studio doubles as a gallery of her various art projects.

FAREY: I've got a splint on this leg that you can't see. It's got the boot over it, but, because I've got foot drop, I can't move this foot up, and you see, it's affected. It's asymmetrical.

Farey grew up surrounded by a mother and aunties who all sewed and did needlework and crafts. To cut the book-heavy monotony for her psychology and sociology degrees, Farey also completed a fine arts degree even while her health deteriorated.

FAREY: I was actually trying to paint with my knee, because I could hardly lift up this arm…I just adapted myself and just stuck the brush in my mouth.

Farey and Dossetor have learned to live—and even thrive—with their disabilities. But that doesn’t mean everything—or anything—is easy.

Both artists spend hours just inches away from their canvases. Farey holds the paintbrush in her cheek.

FAREY: [with brush in mouth] So yeah, I talk with it in my mouth. And yeah, they're all the other ends are all chewed…Some people use longer brushes, but you have more control over the shorter brushes.

Dossetor puts rubber tubing on his paintbrush handles and grips them between his teeth. His helpers squeeze paint onto a palette for him.

DOSSETOR: [with brush in mouth] And I have to move around a bit, and my chair can go up and down.

After a conference in Singapore he discovered water soluble oil paints.

DOSSETOR: Like, I really like artwork with palette knives, but a palette knife is very difficult with your mouth, because you need to get the right angle to scrape, yeah.

To retain their scholarships, Farey and Dossetor have to submit at least 5 quality paintings a year. Dosseter admits it’s not only about the end product.

DOSSETOR: I could speed up my painting process by taking photos, printing them out onto a canvas, and then painting on top of it, which I did for one painting, but I sort of felt like I was cheating.

A few years ago, Dossetor took an online class to improve his painting skills.

DOSSETOR: I didn't tell anyone that I was disabled, cause I wanted to get realistic feedback.

The teacher wanted multiple drafts of each work and singled out Dossetor when he didn’t do them. Another student—who didn’t know about his disability—stuck up for him. The teacher then turned on his defender.

DOSSETOR: It was all getting a bit tense amongst the group. And so I sort of said, well, this is the reason why. And then…the teacher backed right off.

Suddenly his art grew in the eyes of his fellow students. But that’s exactly what Dossetor was trying to avoid.

DOSSETOR: We don't want people to buy the cards because they feel sorry for the artist. We want them to like them because they like the paintings.

Farey says she loves the challenge painting provides. And she tries not to let her disability get in the way.

FAREY: I guess you have to be flexible and laugh, and move with, with what presents to you, and try and just make the most of what you got. I guess that’s my big lesson in life.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Melbourne and Linton, Australia.

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