Maria Donaldson is a talented painter who’s sick of being forced to be inspiring at inaccessible art venues around the city.
“Everyone’s always telling me how inspired they are that I paint even though I’m disabled,” Donaldson told us while being hoisted onto the stage at her latest gallery opening. “But my paraplegia doesn’t impact my painting at all. People think I’m like that guy on TikTok who got famous for painting using his mouth. But I can move my arms and hands easily. The only thing that impacts my work is that it’s impossible to find accessible venues in this city.”
“We just love having Maria at events,” the gallery owner, John Meadia, told us. “She lifts up everyone’s spirit by being so inspirational. She needs help to get into the gallery, between some of the exhibits and onto the stage for the Q&A, but she persists through it all in a way that brings hope and inspiration to everyone else who can just … walk.”
When asked why they didn’t install wheelchair ramps in the gallery, Meadia said, “This is an old building, and renovations aren’t easy to get approved by the city. And we also haven’t tried. But it really makes you think about how lucky you are to have use of your legs when we host a disabled artist like Maria, so that’s worth it for our patrons.”
Donaldson would prefer if the city invested in updates to old spaces to make them wheelchair accessible. “Sometimes they have a wheelchair ramp for the front entrance, but inside the space the places you can go with a wheelchair are limited. Other times the website says the space is accessible, but when you call them it turns out the wheelchair entrance is around a corner down an alleyway through the basement and you need to book in advance for someone to let you in.”
“It is so inspiring what she’s achieved,” one of the patrons said. When asked which painting was their favorite, they clarified, “Oh, I just meant like, kind of crazy she has the inner life to make art even though she’s disabled.”
During the Q&A, the first half hour was mostly questions about Donaldson’s disability, But finally there were several questions about the art. Donaldson said afterward that this was, in her experience, a pretty decent ratio. “Sometimes it’s only about how inspiring my life is. I don’t even know if they really see the art, or if they just want to feel good about themselves for supporting a disabled person.”