A lot of people view cripple art in the same dismissive way
they view cripple sports. The prevailing image
of cripple sports is a giant clown face painted on a slab of wood that’s
mounted upright and there are holes cut out where the clown’s eyes, nose and mouth
ought to be. And cripples try to toss beanbags through the holes. And the
winner gets a medal and a hug. And so do the losers. And the prevailing image of cripple
art is a stick figure sculpture made out of pipe cleaners. Or maybe made out of
Popsicle sticks glued together with Elmer’s.
But there’s a crippled abstract expressionist painter from
Spain who may well destroy all the negative stereotypes about crippled artists.
His name is Alejandro Mierda de Toro and he’s paralyzed from the neck down. He
broke his neck in a tragic accident from which he learned a
valuable lesson: NEVER text while
running with the bulls.
Mierda de Toro can
only move his head. He was an art student at the time of his accident but he
remained determined to achieve his dream of becoming a famous painter. His
therapists encouraged him by introducing him to the work of the many crippled artists
from around the world who paint by holding a paintbrush in their mouth. But
their style left him cold. He saw it as hotel art-- paint-by-numbers-looking
pictures of old barns and soaring eagles.
Mierda de Toro wanted to paint in the drip, splatter and
splash style of his idol, American abstract expressionist Jackson Pollock. One day Mierda de Toro had a revelation and
on that day he found his voice as a crippled artist. He decided he would indeed
use his mouth to paint, but he would not use a brush. Thus, in a typical painting session, one of Mierda
de Toro uncrippled assistants stood eagerly by. The artist studied his
canvas intensely and called out for a color, as a surgeon calls out for an
instrument. The assistant then dropped a straw into a canister containing that
color of paint and held it up to the artist’s mouth. The artist drew in a
precise mouthful of the paint through the straw and then spat the paint onto the canvas.
The results are nothing short of amazing. Mierda de Toro has
created countless new colors by sloshing multiple colors of paint around in his mouth
before spitting.
Art historians refer to this early stage of Mierda de Toro’s
career as his spit period. During this time, the entire inside of his mouth
looked like a Jackson Pollock painting, even though he gargled regularly with
turpentine.
Mierda de Toro then evolved into what is known as his turkey baster
period. His assistants held up turkey basters filled with paint and Mierda de
Toro applied the paint to the canvas by biting down hard on the baster bulb. (Author’s
note: Mierda de Toro does not have much of a sense of humor so DO NOT refer to
him as a master baster. Trust me. I know.)
Mierda de Toro’s work has sometimes been controversial, such
as his infamous Chihuahua Project. His plan was to put Chihuahuas of all shapes and sizes into a
room covered with canvas from floor to ceiling and then dump paint on the dogs so
they could create an abstract painting by shaking and rolling around like dogs
do when then they get all wet. But after protests by animal rights activists,
his public commission for the project was rescinded.
Mierda de Toro’s next frontier is large-scale public art. He
received a commission to paint a mural on the wall of a government office
building in Madrid. He will execute the project by first having his assistants
set up dozens of large vats of paint on the roof’s edge at the top of the wall.
Then Mierda de Toro will be lowered by a rope in his wheelchair from a
helicopter and swung like a wrecking ball until he personally knocks over each
vat and all the paint spills down the wall.
Thanks to the fiery young Alejandro Mierda de Toro, soon the public perception of crippled artists will never be the same. Everybody will picture a
cripple in a wheelchair biting a baster bulb or dangling from a helicopter.
