Kam Redlawsk is a Korean-American artist with a chronic disease that led to complete quadriplegia. The Los Angeles-based interior designer, advocate, speaker, columnist, and blogger has been in a wheelchair for eight years now.
“Eight years ago this disease began wasting my upper body including my core, neck, arms, shoulders, hands, and my fingers,” Redlawsk shared with Bored Panda . “I am an artist. One day I will no longer be able to draw… among one thousand other things. This is a daily devastating reminder. Despite it, I live my life to the fullest, fully grasping the essence of what time means.”
Scroll down and check out her Instagram account where she shares some of her work.
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(1 of 1) SEXABILITY: When You Have A Disability, What Happens To Your Sex Life?, July 8, 2014 . I did this drawing in 2014 for my KoreAm column I was writing some years ago. My column mostly focused on my experiences with progressive disability and my life as a Korean American adoptee. I’ve actually never been satisfied with this drawing. I drew it towards the beginning of me teaching myself how to illustrate, but this one seems to resonate with many fellow wheelies and I feel the subject is very important. . . What I wrote in 2014: “When a completely life-altering event happens, like a car accident that leaves you paraplegic or, in my case, an extremely rare muscle deterioration disease sets in at the age of 20, you might possibly think that, because you’re in a wheelchair or disabled, your life is over. Not true. While there are many things you may no longer be able to do, much of it is a matter of reinventing yourself. . Let me explain. . Growing up, I never saw “sexy” and “beautiful” figures offered to me in the form of a “disabled” person. This inevitably fed an initial perception of disabled persons being essentially “asexual.” Obviously, now that I am an adult with the intimate experience of being “disabled,” I know that such an idea is completely wrong. . And, yet, I have to say that, while perspectives are slowly changing, society still largely looks at disabled individuals as objects of care or somebody one is obligated to be nice to. . The disabled are often desexualized, ignored and babied, and if one happens to have a partner, then that person is deemed some kind of saint for even considering taking on the wounded—as if disabled individuals are incapable of inspiring romantic love or eroticism. A person’s physical dependence on others is automatically equated with emotional and intellectual dependence and inferiority, and many can’t seem to fathom how one could even have the brain space to think about sex. . Well, I am here to say that yes, we do think about sex, and yes, we can and do have sex, maybe even more than you 😉…(continued ⬇️) #kamdraws #disabledartist
A post shared by Kam Redlawsk (@kamredlawsk) on Apr 9, 2019 at 4:57pm PDT
