A Comfortable Prison
2022
by Grace Sirman
“I want to stay in bed all day like she does, she’s so lucky.”
This is something I heard frequently in high school, when I first became disabled, and I still hear my peers whisper it around now that I'm in college. Out of frustration and exhaustion, I made this self portrait. My disability makes me feel imprisoned in my own body, I have so little control over any of it. I lose count of how many hours pass when I can't leave my bed, or what time of day it is. Being tired is not fatigue, being sore is not excruciating pain, and being glued to a bed for over 12 hours is definitely not lucky.
My name is Grace (she/her), and I'm a junior studying at the Stamps School of Art and Design. I'm a Mexican girl from Texas who loves to incorporate both my Mexican and my disabled identities in my artwork. I primarily illustrate digitally, but still create traditional work with colored pencils and gouache. I hope to become a visual development artist post graduation.
Image description: Grace is a young white woman with short brown hair, bleached eyebrows, and green eyes. She is wearing makeup, and is wearing a pink dress, only the straps are visible. She is smiling slightly at the camera.
Image description: A white woman with short, brown hair, is shown lying in bed, her head on a colorful pillow. She is wearing an orange jumpsuit, akin to the ones worn in prison. There is a plain white shirt layered underneath. She has green eyes, with prominent eye bags, and a flushed face. There is a gloomy expression on her face as she looks to the left. We can see a patterned blanket, and on the textured blue green wall, there are drawn tally marks, 18.