Issue link: https://tmcpulse.uberflip.com/i/686754
t m c » p u l s e | j u n e 2 0 1 6 31 I will paint myself out of a wheel- chair. That was literally how I thought this would work. Anytime I get a chance to say, 'Look, this is something we, as mankind, can fix, change and finally overcome.' I still believe that. Q | What is your hope for curing paralysis? A | I think it's something that's still very real and a goal that can happen. That was part of the painting. Any time I have a chance I tell someone, 'Look, we have to heal, we have to fix this.' Sure, a wheelchair gets me from point A to point B and my life's wonderful, but I still wanted it to be known that being in a wheelchair, being paralyzed, still sucks. We can fix it—I know we can. I don't know how, but I know we can and I know there have been a lot of strides made. A lot of things that have been done to make things better and I've noticed that all along from a medical research standpoint. It seems like there's a lot of good stuff on the horizon. It's one of those things that I just want to keep push- ing. When I started, that was when Christopher Reeve was alive too, and I knew he was a very vocal advocate for the research and so I really just kind of thought that's what I have to do if I want to beat it, be as vocal and as visual as I can about the need to change it. He always had an analogy that I liked. He compared it a lot to the transconti- nental railroad. The medical science is going to start on one side and I'm going to start with the physical rehab that I can do on the other and God willing we'll meet in the middle and fix this. I liked that and it made sense to me. That's why today I'm still trying to continue to stay healthy and just every day hope that I wake up not paralyzed or that I'm going to read some headline that we cured it or something like that. It's kind of the whole idea in this paint myself out of the wheelchair. Q | How do you balance writing and painting? A | The two complement each other really well. It's very much different sides of your brain that you use for painting and writing, but it's cool and I'd like to figure out how to incorporate them into my own thing. Continuing to work has been a really great experience because some- times you have to step away from the canvas, stop obsessing over one thing and go obsess over another. When you've done something a hundred times, sometimes you need to take a step back and look at something that's a shape or a color and I think that's been really good. In terms of professional life and time, […] that's a balance we're all trying to figure out, whether you're paralyzed or not. That happy balance of a professional life and personal life is a constant challenge and like those old carnival spinning plates, trying to keep all that stuff going. Q | Tell us about TIRR commissioning your artwork. A | Susan Thomas looked through the site and some work that I had done, and they had kind of gravitated toward the orchids, which I really liked, too. I enjoyed painting the orchids, because there's something that seems very sim- ple about them, yet the more you stare and study them, the more complicated they become. I kind of thought that was an analogy to the injury and the accident. It's like, 'We can fix this and you'll be fine, but it's more complicated than that.' It's difficult, but I think from a broad view they can still be beautiful. I chose white ones because there's kind of symmetry that's similar to a vertebra, particularly in one of them. The C5 has more of a linear structure to it and there's more of a pattern that's like a spinal column. You see the cord running through it and it's all back together and then at the end of it there's one that has yet to open. That's the future, as you're leaving the hospital you don't know what it's going to bring and it has yet to open. The other kind of orchid is more painterly from a style standpoint. You see the strokes, the stem that the orchids are coming off of is definitely fractured and it goes in different direc- tions, and the whole thing, even from a composition standpoint, is a little more hectic and everywhere. There are blooms that are open and blooms that are not, and that's a little bit of the life one has when you're rolled into a hospital like that. Everything at that point is up in the air and fractured, and there's disarray, and then hopefully you get out of there and things are a little more in line again and have a little more structure and are starting to look more like a life. Q | What do you want your legacy to be? What wisdom do you want to impart to others? A | Just don't quit. Never give up and keep trying to make life better. I think that's a big part of why we're all here. It's to leave something good behind. I don't know if it's inspiration or hope. I think both can be tricky, bad and good, but I think I want people to not give up and to not think that we can't make a difference and, in a weird way, make the world better than you left it. Let's cure paralysis. That's my drop- the-gauntlet to everyone that's working on and around it. Don't give up, don't tell patients you're never going to walk again. It really all starts with people believing it can be done. I hope that the stuff I do inspires people who are doing research and doing the medical side of it to keep pushing and not give up and not think to the heart that we can't do it. Know that I think once everyone is on the same page that there is a possibil- ity and it is real and to follow this, and I don't mean in 10 or 20 or 30 years, I mean now. There's some urgency to it, I hope that gets it done. I hope that there's a cure, I feel like I can be a part of it and that I made a difference. VISIT TMCNEWS.ORG TO WATCH AN ORIGINAL VIDEO FEATURING JARED DUNTEN AND HIS FAMILY.