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MFPA USA, Atlanta, GA (2026)

09/04/2026

This week's Feature Friday: Paulus Ploier, a mouth painter from Austria.
If you read Wednesday's post, you already know a little about Paulus — the imagination and yoga practice he wrote about a few years ago, and the paintings that came from it. Today we want to introduce you to the rest of his life and work.
Paulus was born on November 4, 1965, in Nussdorf am Attersee, in the lake country of Upper Austria. A diving accident left him unable to use his hands. He found his way to painting at a rehabilitation center, where he began teaching himself the basics, then took formal art instruction for three years to sharpen what he had already started to build on his own.
VDMFK began supporting him as a Student Member in 1990. Four years later, he became an Associate Member. By 1999, he had earned Full Membership—a milestone he has held for more than a quarter-century. In 2011, he received VDMFK's Life Award.
Paulus paints landscapes and portraits with real warmth, but his titles reveal a painter working through something deeper — Kraft (Strength), Leidensfluss (Flow of Suffering), Mehr Halt (More Support), Gott ist spürbar (God Is Palpable). His work moves easily between quiet Austrian countryside scenes and loose, gestural figure studies that carry real emotional and spiritual weight, sometimes within the same body of work.
He lives with his wife, Monika, and paints live at public events across Austria, playing harmonica for the crowds between demonstrations — a genuine fixture of the Austrian arts scene for decades.
In April of this year, he represented Austria at VDMFK's 70th anniversary General Assembly in London. And this past May, he did something particularly close to what we have been celebrating all summer — he organized and led an international painting workshop in Hungary, bringing together fifteen mouth and foot painting artists from seven different countries to learn from and alongside one another.
One painter, gathering others. That is a tradition MFPA members share across every corner of the world we call home. 💛
—
Paintings shown, in order: Warum schlagt Ihr mich. Typischer Ungarischer Weinkeller. Kraft. Leidensfluss. Mehr Halt. Die 3 Weisen. Gott ist spürbar.
💬 Have you seen Paulus's work, or come across the wider VDMFK community before? We'd love to hear.

09/02/2026

Wisdom Wednesday. Today, something about the relationship between mind and body that most of us never have reason to think about.
In 1978, a car accident on an icy Iowa road killed a thirteen-year-old boy's father and sister, and left him paralyzed from the chest down. His name is Matthew Sanford. For twelve years, doctors and therapists told him the same thing: build a strong upper body, and do your best to ignore the rest.
At twenty-five, he found yoga instead. He did not become a yoga teacher because he overcame his paralysis — he has said, many times, that the opposite is true. "I'm a yoga teacher because I live an altered mind-body relationship." He built a practice around learning to listen to a body he had been told to stop listening to, and has spent decades teaching that practice to others through a nonprofit he founded, Mind Body Solutions.
We are telling you about Matthew Sanford because something remarkably similar happened, independently, to one of our own painters.
A few years ago, Austrian mouth painter Paulus Ploier — paralyzed from the neck down since a diving accident — wrote about his own discovery. His wife Monika took up yoga, and he decided to join her. He couldn't move into any of the postures, so instead he pictured them as clearly and completely as he could and held that picture in his mind.
He felt his body differently — his posture, his circulation, even his warmth on cold days. And underneath it all, something that mattered more than any physical change: "The most important thing for me was the feeling: I can do something!"
Paulus went on to paint a series of watercolours depicting the poses that meant the most to him, each one imagined into his body before it was ever painted onto the page.
Two men, on two different continents, arriving at nearly the same discovery, decades apart and without ever having met: the connection between mind and body does not end where movement ends. It simply asks to be found elsewhere.
On Friday, we introduce you to Paulus properly. 💛
—
Paintings: The Standing Forward Fold, The Warrior, The Seated Twist, The Sun Salutation, The Lotus Position — from Paulus Ploier's series Vital Through Yoga and Imagination.
💬 Has imagination or visualization ever helped you through something difficult — physical or otherwise? We'd love to hear.

08/31/2026

Some good news to start the week — a new month, and a new page.
September is here. If you have one of our calendars on your wall, it's time to turn the page.
This month: Sunset Sail, by Mark Fantin. A single sailboat crossing calm water under a sky the painter has lit entirely on fire — teal and wine-red sails against orange, a low sun catching everything.
"Adventure is worthwhile in itself." — Amelia Earhart, this month's quote, and a good one to carry into September.
Wishing you a good month ahead. 💛

08/30/2026

Sunday slow-look.
Take a minute with this painting. Let your eyes move across it slowly — the boats at rest, the sails catching the last of the light, the harbor doubled in the water below.
Now close your eyes.
Imagine yourself standing at the water's edge as day tips into evening. The boats have come in, sails still raised but slack, rocking gently where they're anchored. Nothing is rushed here. There is only stillness.
Take a slow breath in. Let it out. Take another. Let your shoulders drop.
Day cannot be hurried into night. Summer cannot be hurried into autumn. These things happen in their own time, and no amount of pushing changes that. The boats do not fight the water they rock on — they rest in it. Perhaps that is the invitation: not to rush the transitions in your own life, but to find a little peace inside them instead.
When you are ready, open your eyes and carry some of that peace into your week.
Painting by Victor Berrocal Rodrigo — Marina suave. Mouth-painted.
Your Sunday can be slow. 💛

08/28/2026

This week's Feature Friday: Jesús Montoya.
If you read Wednesday's post on disability sports, you already know Jesús runs marathons in the Team Hoyt push-chair format. What you may not yet know is that running marathons is only one of the things he does. Jesús is genuinely one of the most active MFPA members we have.
He was born in Michoacán, Mexico, in 1977, and moved to California as a young man. In November 1998, at age 21, a car accident on a rainy California highway left him a C-5 tetraplegic. He was days from becoming a father.
The years that followed were hard. He spent a long time in medical care in Santee, California, and had to fight — genuinely fight — for the right to leave his residence, attend classes, travel by bus, move through the world under his own agency. He won that fight, and eventually went on to San Diego State University's School of Social Work — because he had come to understand something worth sharing with others: what it takes to advocate for yourself when the world assumes you can't.
Jesús became a Student Member of MFPA in March 2008 and has been painting seriously ever since — a painter of places and moments, with a confident and bright palette.
Which brings us to this year.
On July 18, he led his very first public painting workshop at Balboa Park, where he is currently exhibiting his work. In his own words: "I never imagined it would turn out the way it did. I was surprised by how many people attended, and I certainly wasn't expecting such a wonderful response or such a successful event. It truly meant a lot to me, and I couldn't be happier with how everything went."
That workshop is one of many new things this year. In May, he ran the Rock 'n' Roll San Diego 5K in 29 minutes and the half marathon the next day in one hour and twenty-eight minutes. Last year, he went paragliding. He surfs. He is married and lives with his wife in the San Diego area.
We wanted to introduce Jesús properly because he is a genuine embodiment of what MFPA members do with the practice they have built — not just paint, but live full expansive lives. Adventure. Advocacy. Community. Craft. Love.
And, honestly — because it needs saying — Jesús is one of the loveliest people you could ever meet. His warmth comes through every conversation, every message, every workshop. If you get the chance to see his work at Balboa Park or catch him at a race, you'll understand what we mean. 💛
—
Works shown, in order: Venice Still. Bicycling on the Bridge. Calles de San Francisco (San Francisco Streets). Un paseo por el parque del norte (A Walk Through the North Park). Estoy feliz (I Am Happy). Nadando para sobrevivir (Swimming to Survive). La Navidad ya está aquí (Christmas Is Already Here).
💬 Have you visited Balboa Park, watched a Team Hoyt push-chair pair pass you at a race, or come across Jesús's work before? We'd love to hear.

08/26/2026

FACEBOOK — BOTH PAGES (same content)
Wisdom Wednesday. Today we want to try something a little different, because MFPA is not only about painting and our members are not only painters. We want to talk about disability sports — a landscape that has been reshaping mainstream athletics for longer than most people realize, and one that many of our own members are genuinely part of.
The first Paralympic Games were held in Rome in 1960 — four hundred athletes from twenty-three countries, competing in what would become one of the most significant international sporting movements of the twentieth century. Sixty-five years later, the Paralympics are the third-largest sporting event in the world, behind only the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup.
The marathon world has been evolving in parallel. In 1983, amputee runner Dick Traum became the first disabled athlete to complete the New York City Marathon and founded Achilles International, which pairs disabled athletes with volunteer guides to help them participate in mainstream races. Team Achilles has run in every NYC Marathon since.
Around the same time, in Massachusetts, a father named Dick Hoyt spent decades pushing his son Rick — who had cerebral palsy — in a race chair. Together they completed more than a thousand races, including thirty-two Boston Marathons and six Ironman triathlons. The father-and-son push-chair format they pioneered, Team Hoyt, is now practiced by hundreds of duos in races across North America every year.
Here is a piece of language most people don't know. The word Paralympic is not a shortened form of parallel Olympics, and it does not refer to paraplegia. It combines the Olympic name with the Greek preposition παρά (para), which means "beside" or "alongside." The Paralympics are the games that happen alongside the Olympics — not below, not compensating, not lesser, but alongside.
That reshapes the whole thing.
Because the argument disability sports has been making for more than sixty years is not "look at what we can do despite our disabilities." It is "we have always been here, competing and training and winning and belonging in the sporting life of our countries — alongside you, not below you."
Some of our own MFPA members are part of this larger story. Susie Matthias, C.M., one of our longest-serving Canadian members, plays hockey. Grant Sharman, our New Zealand-based VDMFK Board member, is one of the world's most respected wheelchair rugby coaches. Chris Kuster, an American mouth painter, illustrated a memoir called Nick Springer on the Mouth about the two-time Paralympic medalist in wheelchair rugby. And Jesús Montoya, one of our American members, is a marathoner who competes in the Team Hoyt push-chair format.
Four painters. Four athletes. Four members of a global cooperative that has never asked its members to be only one thing.
On Friday, we introduce you to Jesús properly. 💛
— In memory of all the incredible adaptive athletes who have competed alongside. Always. —
💬 Have you followed the Paralympics, watched Team Hoyt run, or come across Team Achilles in a marathon field? We'd love to hear.

08/24/2026

Some good news to start the week.
On May 30th and 31st, our American MFPA member Jesús Montoya competed in the Rock 'n' Roll San Diego running weekend — and had a genuinely wonderful two days.
Saturday: the 5K. Jesús finished in 29 minutes.
Sunday: the half marathon. Jesús finished in one hour and twenty-eight minutes — a seriously fast time, which he credits entirely to his Sunday runner, who apparently was flying.
Jesús competes in the Team Hoyt push-chair format, where a runner (or a rotating team of runners) pushes him through the race — a format pioneered in Massachusetts by Dick and Rick Hoyt in the 1970s and now practiced by hundreds of duos in races across North America every year.
We wanted to share the news because Jesús is a genuine athlete, and his life outside the easel is one of the things we love most about him.
On Wednesday, we'll talk about disability sports more broadly — and on Friday, we'll introduce Jesús properly. Stay with us. 💛
💬 Have you ever run a Rock 'n' Roll race, or watched a push-chair pair pass you in a marathon field? We'd love to hear.

08/23/2026

Sunday slow-look.
Take a minute with this painting. Let your eyes move across it slowly — the birches, the water, the light coming through the trees.
Now close your eyes.
Imagine yourself walking into the forest. The birches are tall and quiet around you. The grass is warm underfoot. You come to the water — a small, still lake, the whole forest reflected in it. There is no one else here.
Stand at the edge for a moment. Take a slow breath in. Let it out. Take another. Let your shoulders drop. Let whatever you were carrying today loosen a little.
Stay as long as you need.
When you are ready, open your eyes. The week is ahead of you. You can meet it.
Painting by Park Jeong — Summer of Birch Trees (See im Birkenwald). Oil on canvas, mouth-painted.
Your Sunday can be slow. 💛

08/21/2026

This week's Feature Friday: Brom Wikstrom .
If you read Wednesday's post on the business we have been running for seventy years, today we want to introduce you to one of the artists it exists to serve. Brom is a working American mouth painter and one of our longest-standing members. He is also a genuine embodiment of the answer to a question the eight founders of MFPA set out to answer in 1957: can a disabled artist earn an independent living from their work?
In Brom's case, the answer is yes. And has been for decades.
Brom was born in Seattle in 1953. His father was a commercial artist, and Brom apprenticed with him as a young man. He went on to a two-year advertising art program at Seattle Central Community College, then moved to New Orleans to work as a sign painter himself. He was 21 years old, at the beginning of a real career, and he loved the work.
In the summer of 1975, he broke his neck in a diving accident and his whole life changed.
After seven weeks in intensive care and a year of rehabilitation, he faced the same question every young adult faces — what happens now? — but he faced it in a version most people never do. Everything about the life he had been building had changed. The father he had apprenticed with. The city he had been working in. The body he had been counting on to hold a brush, climb a scaffold, paint a sign. All of it had to be rebuilt from the ground up.
Brom's own words, in an interview with CBS News: "I thought that I was going to be on public assistance. How was I going to make it?"
His father taught him to paint with his mouth. In 1985, Brom received a VDMFK Scholarship — the same scholarship program that supports young MFPA artists today. He moved from student to associate to full member. And then, in time, to something rarer: a lifetime position with the association.
This is what he told CBS News about it: "It is a lifetime position now, so if physically I was incapable of working, they would be there for me."
In the years since his accident, he has done more than paint. He established an arts program at Seattle Children's Hospital. He was appointed by Governor Christine Gregoire to the Washington State Arts Commission in 2007, focused on disability-accessible arts programs. He owns his own gallery in Seattle's Wallingford neighborhood. He has presented his paintings to the Empress and Emperor of Japan. He created a piece for the 9/11 anniversary that MFPA distributed in 730,000 copies of the New York Times. His watercolors — clear, transparent, graphically confident — are collected internationally.
A working commercial artist, forty years in. Still painting. Still being paid for it. Still building what eight founders started in 1957. 💛
💬 Have you seen Brom's work, visited his Seattle gallery, or come across one of his pieces before? We'd love to hear.
Flower Medley I
Madonna and Child II
Sagrada Familia
Watermill
Spring Flowers

08/19/2026

Wisdom Wednesday: who we are
Our motto has been the same for seventy years: Self-help, not charity. Here is what it means, in practice.
MFPA is a for-profit business. We are not a charity. We send cards, calendars, and small gifts to households across the United States and Canada, and each one features the reproduced work of one of our member artists. Every sale funds those artists directly. That is the model.
It exists because, in 1957, eight painters in Germany looked honestly at the world they had been born into and understood something clearly: for disabled people, the ordinary path to earning a living as a painter did not exist. It never had.
That reality has been persistent. Disabled people, in every country where the data has been studied, face significant economic disparity. Employment rates are lower, poverty rates are higher, and income gaps have stayed remarkably stubborn across generations. And for artists specifically — a profession that is economically difficult for anyone — the disadvantage compounds.
The eight founders did not want to be pitied for this. They did not want handouts. They did not want to be treated as inspirational exceptions. What they wanted was simple, but not easy: to be paid, as working artists, for their work.
Seventy years later, that business still works. Our Student Members earn a stipend as they develop their practice. Our Associate and Full Members are paid on an ongoing basis for the work they produce. The goal, plainly stated, is that our artists earn an independent living from their craft.
We are heading into the last months of the year — website redesign launching this September, new products arriving for the holidays, the season when our cards and calendars land in more homes than at any other time. So we want to say it clearly: when you buy an MFPA card, keep an MFPA calendar on your wall, or send one of our gifts to a family member at Christmas, that is what pays a working disabled artist.
That is what eight painters set out to build in 1957. And it is what our members are still building today.
On Friday, we will introduce you to one of our longest-standing members. 💛
💬 Do you have an MFPA calendar on your wall, or one of our cards in your kitchen drawer? We'd love to hear.

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