Photostory: Mariam Paré

For the photojournalism class I took in the fall of my sophomore year at Northwestern, I was with creating a story shot through photos as my final project. After stumbling upon the subject of disabled painters, I found Mariam Paré. Mariam is a mouth painter from Naperville, Illinois. Since she was young, Mariam had a love for art and painting. However, a shooting accident left her almost entirely paralyzed. Despite her disability, she didn't give up on what she loved and learned to paint using her mouth. Now, Mariam has made a name for herself as a successful artist and has even painted for several celebrities, most notably Pierce Brosnan. I was lucky enough to follow her around for a few days and take a couple photographs (above). Hopefully, her story is as inspiring to you as it is to me.

Images by Nicholas Garbaty/MEDILL

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