00:00I was 20 years old and I was shot.
00:05The bullet had entered my spinal cord and made me a quadriplegic.
00:21I had lost the ability to paint with my hands.
00:24I had 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.
00:53Wow, 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.
01:15I'm so careful.
01:16And it's a change.
01:18You know, and sometimes I...
01:19That is really good.
01:24I love it.
01:27That is very good.
01:28You always have this vision of yourself and who you are.
01:30I forget I'm in a wheelchair sometimes.
01:33I'm just Miriam.
01:34And then you can use your body.
01:35I don't have to do it with a bit more.
01:35You know, it's a single piece of hand.
01:37That is very good.
01:37And you can keep it out.
01:37I'm really trying to do it with your mouth because you can just stay in your belly.
01:38And you will always be the same.
01:38I love for you as you're doing that.
01:39I love you.
