2024 finds me disabled and exhausted with crippling fatigue from ME/CFS. I used to be bright and extroverted, with a colourful wardrobe, home, and art practice. Now, I’m fading.
Artist Statement
Chronic illness, covid and neurodivergence have made my house both my castle and my captor. My new works for SICK AF reflect the frustration I feel as a high-risk person during a pandemic. Last year a mere cold disabled me. A covid infection could leave me permanently bedbound, taking away my independence. In this dystopian ‘New Normal,’ where healthcare workers refuse to mask and people avoid testing, I feel isolated and abandoned. If you care about disabled people, please mask in the spaces we are forced to share. Advocate for clean air in schools so that future generations face a lower risk of becoming disabled like me. Support people with Long Covid and ME/CFS – we are doing it tough.
One of millions missing
2024 finds me disabled and exhausted with crippling fatigue from ME/CFS. I used to be bright and extroverted, with a colourful wardrobe, home, and art practice. Now, I’m fading. I’m often too fatigued to lift my head; putting on my glasses to read or paint is often beyond me. I monitor my heart rate and steps on my watch, attempting to exert myself as little as possible because any exertion can make me more unwell for days. The hashtag ‘millions missing’ underscores the invisibility of ME/CFS—we are housebound and missing from life as we knew it.
Staying upright in the New Normal
This stitched still life depicts some of the things that are keeping me stable in a society keen to pretend it’s 2019. One-way masking isn’t foolproof so it’s hard for high risk people to protect themselves.
To reduce my risk, I wear a mask, use nasal spray and mouthwash, monitor the air quality in my classrooms and regularly test for covid in case I need antivirals. I often have flu-like symptoms when I’ve overdone it. I keep electrolytes on hand to manage my dysautonomia. With one-way masking, every outing is a roll of the dice or the chance of a fortune cookie…
ME/CFS back in bed
This little pun (from the birthplace of AC/DC) made me laugh, but I was thinking about the 25% of people with severe ME/CFS when I embroidered this.
Severe ME has a massive range of severity from “only” housebound, to patients who are bedbound with severe symptoms requiring tube feeding and IV hydration. Very Severe ME patients are as sick as late-stage AIDS patients but can live like this for years or decades in a state often referred to as ‘Living Death’.
Severe ME patients suffer medical neglect due to their inability to access telehealth or home visits from doctors. There is no cure and research is underfunded.
This info is from Sammy who died from severe ME at the age of 25 last month in Melbourne. Sammy was an incredible advocate whose work can be found at
https://www.instagram.com/m.e_and_more/
Biography
Lucinda Crimson has been captivated by pattern, colour, a maximalist aesthetic, and mid-century objects since she was a teenager in the 1980s. She studied Fine Arts at Curtin University, majoring in painting and sculpture, but later branched out into clothing design, screen-printing, and spray-painting. Recently, she rediscovered her love of oil painting, and in early 2022, exhibited her still life paintings at the Moore’s Building in Fremantle in a sell-out show. Her works blend spray-painted patterns using layered laser-cut stencils and traditional oil painting techniques. Lucinda has ME/CFS and teaches Visual Arts and Textiles part-time at a local secondary school.
Connect
Website: lucindacrimson.com
Instagram: @loochcrimson
Instagram: @lucinda_crimson_design
Chronic illness, covid and neurodivergence have made my house both my castle and my captor.
list of works
1.
Lucinda Crimson
One of millions missing
2024
oil, enamel and acrylic on cradled wood panel
40 x 30cm
NFS
2.
Lucinda Crimson
Chez Looch Day and Night
2022
oil and enamel on board, digitally-printed fabric
130 x 50cm
NFS
3. (left)
Lucinda Crimson
ME/CFS Back in bed
2024
embroidery thread on linen
30 x 30cm
$200
4. (centre)
Lucinda Crimson
Housebound
2023
oil and enamel on cradled wood panel
50 x 40cm
$750
5. (right)
Lucinda Crimson
Staying upright in ‘The New Normal’
2024
embroidery cotton on digitally-printed fabric
40 x 40cm
$350
Artwork