Mariam Paré painting in her home studio in the western suburbs. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News)

I’ve met a thousand artists but never one like Mariam Paré.

Her paintings shed light on her world, and they have the power to move you. And her technique positively wows.

Paré is a mouth painter. She’s part of an association of 51 American artists with the extraordinary ability to paint with their mouths or their feet.

Most artists seek different ways of doing things. Mariam Paré [Pah-ray] was forced by circumstance to radically alter her way of working. In 1996, she was an aspiring art student visiting Virginia when she was shot and became quadriplegic.

Then she became an aspiring art student all over again, and she trained herself in new abilities. No longer able to paint with her hands, she learned to control the paintbrush with her lips and teeth.

At her home studio in the west suburbs, it’s a marvel to witness her paint.

She turns from the canvas with paintbrush in mouth, lowers her head, taps the brush in water, wipes it on a towel, dabs fresh paint and turns back to the canvas.

Try it — I did and found it all but impossible.

Left: Mariam Paré in her home studio in the western suburbs. (Marc Vitali / WTTW News) Right: A painting by Mariam Paré. (Courtesy of Mariam Paré)

Passion is as important as paint to an artist like Paré, who has extraordinary focus and dexterity. WTTW News spoke with Paré about her life and art — and about how her artwork contributes to the spirit of the holiday season.

WTTW News: Mariam, where did you study?

Mariam Paré: I did my undergrad work at the College of DuPage. They were very accommodating but as you can imagine, being a severely disabled person like myself, going to art school is a lot of self-driven teaching. There’s a lot of physical limitation, so I kind of paved my own path at school. I had great professors who were supportive and taught me what they could, but I was searching for art instruction on a different level.

And you had been a painter before your life changed, too, correct?

Paré: I was an able-bodied person going to art school with a dream of being an artist. I thought I was going into commercial art and graphic design, but then I had that life-changing injury. I survived an act of gun violence. I was shot in the back while driving, shot in the back by an unknown assailant who was never caught or identified. I sustained a spinal cord injury, which left me a quadriplegic. Here I was 20 years old in the middle of college and my life had completely changed. What do you do? How do you contemplate the rest of your life when you can’t use your hands anymore? And so there was a time of great uncertainty, and it was in college that I found the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists.

Mouth and Foot Painting Artists [MFPA] is an Atlanta-based group that dates back to 1957. How did you find them, and what did they teach you?

Paré: I thought I was the only person trying to learn to paint with my mouth, and one day I met another artist at an Abilities Expo who was in a wheelchair and I said ‘What do you do?’ and he said, ‘I belong to MFPA,’ and I found this world where there were many other artists painting in this strange way that I was. It gave me hope that I can really learn this way of painting and still achieve my dream. That’s where it all clicked for me — knowing that my life was different, but just because I was a quadriplegic I wasn’t ready to change everything that I wanted to be. When I discovered mouth painting, I said, ‘OK, this is what I want to do. I can still do it, and I’m going to do it in this different way.’ The process looks different, but I was so hopeful that I was still going to have art in my life. I had to reteach myself to paint with my mouth, and it was the camaraderie of the MFPA that really uplifted and empowered me.

Two paintings from artist Mariam Paré. Left: A 2021 acrylic piece, rain drops on a window. Right: “Heavy Toil.” (Courtesy of Mariam Paré)

Tell us where you’re from originally.

Paré: I was born in Kenitra, Morocco, which is North Africa. My father was a Mexican American and my mother was Moroccan, so I’m half-Mexican and half-Moroccan. My father was a Marine who worked at the U.S. Embassy. And he met my mother, I was born there, and we moved to the United States when I was very young, so I emigrated here with my family.

Who are some of your favorite artists?

Paré: I love Frida Kahlo, but I’m a surrealist at heart so I love Dalí. I’m drawn to artists who persevere and still continue to make art, and they make good art. They make frickin’ awesome art. You know what I mean? Powerful art!

This is a big time of year for artists like yourself — MFPA’s motto is ‘self-help, not charity,’ and there’s an annual sale of greeting cards and calendars.

Paré: Yes, we want people to see the work that we do and get to know us. If you buy our work and products, you’re supporting artists like myself. It doesn’t go anywhere else. The MFPA is run by artists like ourselves. It’s self-managed. It’s democratic. It’s not a corporation that takes our money. It comes right back to us. And at a time when people are sending holiday cards, you want to send something with a little added meaning so… [whispers] buy our cards!

Your paintings can take months to create. Do you stick to a dedicated schedule in your studio, or do you do it when the spirit moves you?

Paré: I wish life with disability was schedulable, but it’s not. I spend a lot of time painting and it’s my job, but I have to work around pain and illness. It’s still a labor of love. This is the weird thing about disability — when bad things happen, and, yeah, becoming a quadriplegic could have been the worst thing that ever happened to me — but sometimes I think if I had not been disabled, could I have become the artist that I am? Would I have had the time? Yes, I’m disabled, but I have a life now where I can dedicate my time towards art. I have a schedule where I can paint when I’m able, and I’m so thankful that I have this freedom to express myself.

Artist Mariam Paré working on a painting of Salvador Dalí, one of her favorite artists. (Courtesy of Mariam Paré)

Give an example of something you learned from another artist from MFPA.

Paré: Well, there’s no videos on how to paint with your mouth. There’s no books. It’s all based on experience. Something that stopped me from painting large pictures for a very long time was, when you’re painting with your mouth, you can only paint an area as big as your mouth can reach, and so I was limited by this for years, and it wasn’t until I started talking to other artists and learned how they did things. Another artist taught me, ‘If you can’t reach the top of the painting, flip the painting over so the top is now the bottom and paint half of it upside down.’ I started doing that and was able to paint larger. Another artist gave me the idea of scrolling easels, so now I’m painting 5x5-foot canvases. I have a painting in the University of Utah Rehabilitation Hospital that I did for a $20,000 commission. It’s a five-foot painting, and I’m a mouth painter! I would never have learned these things if I wasn’t talking to other artists like me.

I can see how your work has evolved. There are still lovely pictures for holiday cards, of course, but you’re also diving into some heavy subjects.

Paré: I started off just painting the traditional things — still life, landscape, portraits — these are what painters paint, right? It took me a long time to get the bravery to explore new themes. This is why I’m excited about my artistic future. I’m able to do more cathartic paintings, paintings based on my experience. These are more advanced subjects, and I’m excited about it. I never found that I had a voice. I didn’t know what I wanted to say with my art before, and now that I’m a mature artist I feel like I’m touching on themes about disability more. What gets me excited is being able to express myself and give people glimpses into my mind.

Note: Mariam Paré is a fellow with the Chicago nonprofit 3Arts and volunteers with the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab.

Mouth and Foot Painting Artists sells holiday cards to raise money for artists who paint with their mouths and feet. Here, two paintings by Mariam Paré. (Courtesy of Mariam Paré)

Marc Vitali is the JCS Fund of the DuPage Foundation Arts Correspondent.