Violet Moon Base

This watercolour is called “Violet Moon Base”, which was a phase I was in during the 20 months of mask mandates from 2020-2022. As my disabilities prevent me from being able to wear a mask or a face shield I was stuck in my house and my health declined. I felt completely disempowered as my medical mask exemption was not honoured in London anywhere, at all. So much pressure was put on everyone’s shoulders in my life as a result. I faced high strung security guards and looks of horror as I tried to access basic needs. I wanted to die, all because no one honoured mask exemptions.

The world outside was at times a quiet and lifeless landscape, there was no where I was allowed to be. I may as well have been on the moon. AT this time I changed my instagram to Violet Moon Base and used this as my avatar for a long time.

Looking back now I have fully realized that wearing a mask may have contributed to my new disabilities, and that masks as a tool and a metaphor meant something to me. Due to pain I can’t wear anything on my head, I am completely vulnerable to weather. As a woman with an invisible illness I have realized that I do a lot of masking behaviour to remain safe in a society that is not a safe place all of the time for disabled and neurodivergent people. Masks keep you silent, mouth covered, they can make you anonymous, they can be joyful, about play, they can be misleading as well. Then just today as I was writing this, I realized that the structures I drew looked like common hospital masks!

So was I hiding, sheltering, processing the “mask” phase in my life? Who knows. All I know is I knew that if I got through that torture that good things would eventually happen. and I would make it so. There still is a “hidden” mask mandate in Ontario, and I am working on changing people’s perceptions of what is OK. The government’s complete neglect of disabled people is not OK. I still have some fight left in me.