“What makes the desert beautiful is that somewhere it hides a well.” -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Read More2020.
Holding It Together
Rebekah Taussig: “I haven’t felt like I have much to say these days. Haven’t had wisdom or insight or clarity or anything useful to offer. Before the planet erupted into chaos, our own tiny world – navigating cancer treatment and a high risk pregnancy – felt like a lot. We were being held together by one long, thin string. And then the whole planet erupted, and the string snapped, and suddenly we’re out here floating in outer space, not sure which way is up or east, not sure how to hold onto each other, let alone the ground.”
Read More
Love, Antosha + Recipient of Anton Yelchin Foundation Artist Grant ❣️
Thank you to the Anton Foundation for their 2020 Artist Grant!! I wanted to share my own little journey in discovering who Anton was and I thought his story was important enough for a blog post. Come in and look around…
Read MoreCoronaVirus Force
With the Coronavirus self-isolation I think people are experiencing things in chaotic slow motion.
Forced to adapt. Forced to stop. And think. Forced to realize the world doesn’t revolve around them…
Read MoreCan You Die from Your Disease?
“Is your disease fatal?” was a question I thought I knew the answer to. Today, I’m not quite sure…
Read More
Goodbye, 2019
Living out my curiosities offers me a road towards potential and freedom. When I travel or do art, I just want to be Kam. I don’t want to be Kam in a chair or disabled Kam. I’ve only ever wanted to be just myself — never strung to labels too deeply, for labels masquerade and dilute the nuance which is individuals.
But if for these few moments I can delight in what I want to do, and what fuels my passion, then I’m glad to share that freedom with you. Freedom from all of it. Freedom from all the bullshit, worries and expectations. If for these few moments I can be the real me without this disease, then I’ll take it and savor it inside for the rest of my life, for it's these fleeting moments that carry me through.
Without them, I’d be nothing. I'd be done..
Read MoreThe 10 Year Challenge
2009 vs 2019 / A lot can change in 10 years. Sometimes I miss her so much. Ohhh, what I could do then...but then again, ohhh what I can do now. I’ve seen and done so much. I’ve tried things I never imagined. I’ve done some crazy shit. I’ve lived as my body dies. I regret nothing.
Read MoreMy First Podcast: Handiscover World - Accessible Travel
My first podcast with @handiscoverworld and its host British Paralympic judoka, Jonathan Drane. Handiscover World is an accessible travel podcast that discusses what travel is like for people with a wide range of disabilities as well as our stories and background.
Read More
Random travel pics, not Peru.
Mach-U Ado About nothing
Last year I found out Machu Picchu is finally wheelchair accessible. The opportunity opened a couple months ago, so we took it. We cashed in our flight miles for Peru tickets and here we are. Climbing Machu is something I’ve always wanted to do since I first heard about it at 17.
Read More
Zebra Tales, 2019
Zebra Tales Part 1: She Walks Softly
Read More“We are the Zebras; the rare, complex, undiagnosed and multisystemic disease patients attempting to heal in a medical system designed to see only horses. Our stories often remain untold, neglected or invalidated in the current medical paradigm. But we have the power to touch hearts, open eyes and expand minds beyond reductionist diagnostic practices. By sharing our challenges and experiences, we help raise awareness of the need for compassionate, accessible care in complex medical cases.”
-Dana Anahalt, Zebra Tales
Zebra Tales Part 2: Healthcare System
We have been led to believe it’s just one person or one party creating the demise of our country, it’s not. It’s systemic. The system is riddled with poison and both republicans and democrats have been putting that poison into their pockets for decades which results in our current system that deeply lacks morality, fairness and justice.
Read More
Self-Doubt and Discrimination
Self-doubt is universal. The phantom of ourselves imposes the will of self-doubt and insecurity onto all of us. I experience self-doubt all the time as an artist, designer and a disabled person forced to prove their worth in an able-bodied world.
Read MoreFeeding Frenzy
For weeks I've had dozens and dozens of bug bites all over me from sleeping at night (Jason has zero) and during the day. I'm sitting here working while mosquitos and bugs are feeding off of my legs and feet and there is nothing I can do about it because I can't move my legs nor reach them.
Read MoreThe Endless Flu
You don't realize how much you need your neck until you're forced to realize how much your neck does for you and what happens when it starts dying. I will push myself to draw until I absolutely cannot, but why must everything in life be so difficult? Why am I constantly saying goodbye?
Read MoreCellular
“A human body is a conversation going, both within the cells and between the cells, and they're telling each other to grow and to die; when you're sick, something's gone with that conversation.”
-W. Daniel Hillis
Read More
Frida's La Casa Azul
“Awareness is what happens when the body malfunctions.” Splitting oneself from the pain is a common psychological response to pain and trauma. An unconscious survival technique. Frida split herself through art.
“And Frida is the sole example in art history of someone who has torn open her breast and her heart in order to tell the biological truth of what she feels inside them.” -Diego Rivera
Read MoreAdaptive Skiing
For the last few years I have made it a birthday goal to try something new — particularly something I’m afraid of like heights. As a result I’ve had some amazing adventures like skydiving over Sonoma County and parasailing over Torrey Pines Pacific coast. But, as I’ve been sharing, I’ve been under a lot of physical and emotional stress…
Read MoreRare Disease Day 2019
Today is international Rare Disease Day; a day to raise awareness amongst the general public and decision-makers about rare diseases and their impact on patients' lives.
A rare disease is any disorder that affects a small percentage of the population, therefore has not been adopted by the pharmaceutical industry because it provides little financial incentive for the private sector to make and market new medications to treat or prevent it. Basically, not profitable enough in a multi-billion dollar sect of high profit drugs.
Read More2018 Bits
“I am fading away. Slowly but surely. Like the sailor who watches his home shore gradually disappear, I watch my past recede. My old life still burns within me, but more and more of it is reduced to the ashes of memory...Once, I was a master at recycling leftovers. Now I cultivate the art of simmering memories.” -Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Read More
Ron Finley - Choose Your Weapon
Ron Finley is a designer, artist and a self-taught gardener. But he’s so much more than these boxes. Finley, lovingly known as the “Gangsta Gardener”, is a community leader who has traveled around the world giving speeches; with a greater message of thinking bigger and freer.
Read More