Disabled Women Make History (and Art) 2026 In-Person Artists

Click on the picture of the artwork to learn more about the piece and its artist in their own words.

Dreamy Delirium by: Elizabeth Hoverman

I express my words through art. Dreamy Delirium reflects my pain and desire to be seen beyond appearance. The blue bubbles covering the face are distorted as I convey how just looking at the surface is not what is deep within. The eye in the center is my friend's but represents me trapped in my own skin. It begs you to peel off the layers to see beyond skin deep.

A person with closed eyes stands against a dark background, their face and upper body covered in vivid layers of neon paint that transform the body into an emotional, living canvas.

Mask by Madeline Miller

Mask explores the different versions of self that I carry as an Autistic person—the performed, protected, and hidden identities shaped by survival and social expectation. By covering my face and body in layers of paint, I transform myself into both subject and canvas. I am drawn to the intense sensory experience of painting directly onto my skin, using touch, texture, and color as a way to process emotion, identity, and embodiment.

A purple and green spherical form with a rough, rock-like exterior, has been cut in half to reveal a highly polished edge. The interior is filled with crystal-esque shapes, constructed from medicine tablets cast in varying shades of yellow with tiny purple letters.

Geodesic[k] 5 by: Melissa Athey

My work explores health and its intersection with illness and disability. I’m interested in how society perceives illness, especially “invisible illness”. Geode-like forms, cast in glass, become a metaphor for life as a disabled person who externally appears healthy while internally living the complexities of unseen chronic illness. Filled with crystalline shapes cast from pills and tablets, I question what it means when “you don’t look sick” but are.

A monochrome lavender and purple photograph mounted in a white frame. On the right, a real, vintage Soviet-era telephone with a black coiled cord rests on a purple surface. The phone, a historical model built entirely without dials or buttons to prevent outgoing calls, is modified by the artist with sparkling rhinestone numbers 0 through 9 in a scattered grid on its smooth face. On the left, a hand wearing a long, dark purple satin glove reaches out toward the telephone but is physically blocked by a clear glass barrier in the center of the photograph. The tips of the fingers rest longingly on the glass barrier.

Not Even If You Wanted To By: Jessiena Lake

Communication differences between neurotypical and neurodivergent cultures create unseen barriers, often misunderstood through a deficit-based lens. Grounded in Dr. Catherine Crompton’s "Double Empathy Problem", this photograph visualizes those seemingly insurmountable divides experienced by late diagnosed women like the artist. A vintage telephone, historically built without dials to prevent outgoing calls symbolizes inherent systemic communication differences and the outstretched hand represents individuals searching for a cultural community that speaks their language.

Side-view etching of a human brain rendered in black lines, with varied markings and textures across its surface. A cream-colored fringe with small drawings borders the right edge.

Self-Reflection by Pilar Lagos

Self-Reflection explores life after non-traumatic brain injury. Created during a papermaking workshop at Dieu Donné in New York, the piece incorporates drypoint on handmade hemp paper using reverse chine collé. The process of making the paper first and then integrating the print allowed me to shape how the image took form, drawing a parallel to human resilience; the ability to rebuild, transform, and find strength amid adversity. This work reflects both the physical and emotional journey of chronic illness and recovery.

A detailed ceramic and mixed-media representation of a human lower spine and pelvis, mounted on a circular, light-grey wooden base. The piece features a broad, flared pelvic bone with characteristic "wings" and a central sacrum from which a vertical column of vertebrae extends upward. Each ceramic vertebra is separated by a translucent, ring-like spacer that mimics the appearance of intervertebral discs, allowing light to pass through the center of the column. The entire bone structure is finished in a deep, glossy blue glaze that ranges from bright cobalt to navy, with subtle reddish-brown undertones peeking through the textured, organic surface. The high-gloss finish creates a reflective, crystalline effect that contrasts with the handmade feel of the anatomical body.

Bone Deep by Autumn Frank

Bone Deep is a visceral exploration of human anatomy and the lived experience of chronic illness. This ceramic work translates the internal realities of ankylosing spondylitis and hip deformities into tangible form. The mottled blue glaze and translucent spacers highlight the tension and fragility within the skeletal structure, transforming clinical observations into a personal narrative of resilience and the enduring connection to my body.

Textured mixed media : A purple sailboat on wavy blue water. A dotted, yellow sun and rain clouds frame vibrant pink hills and soaring white birds in a rhythmic, intuitive style. Signed S.M.

Just Passing Through By: Starlit Moon (Delilah)

Just Passing Through was made during a time where I felt consumed by the fear of not being here for very long. I approached the piece intuitively, letting the imagery form on its own. The waves, rain, birds, clouds, and boat all became reflections of transience and movement — things that arrive, exist briefly, and then pass on. This piece holds both my fear of impermanence and my attempt to make peace with it.

A solid white genderless figure stands in the foreground with a solid dark red oval encompassing their entire womb. The figure is against a dark grey background. In the top right corner, there is a white triangle, representing "the beyond." The outline of a red circle is halfway on the grey background and halfway on the white triangle.

The Hollow by Rowan Beckett Minor

Living with Endometriosis and Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome, both comorbid with my Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, means that I face higher rates for miscarriage. In July 2023, I lost my first and only child. “The Hollow” is the second piece in a series dedicated to this experience. These paintings use a black-white-grey and red acrylic palette, and encompass the pain that accompanies pregnancy loss, especially when living in a non-binary body.

The artwork is a copper bangle bracelet that is rounded on the outside with a flat interior. It is a deep brown hue with golden solder spots at the corners where the metal meets. There is Braille on the outside that reads the messege of the piece and words lightly printed on the inside on the opposite side of the braille and facing inward toward the wearer that read “I know what I saw.”

Seeing is Believing By: Emma Bjurquist

The feeling of not being believed when you tell someone you are blind is one that an astounding number of people with visual impairments have experienced. This piece puts that experience into perspective to sighted people by forcing them to do the work of translating and asking themselves the question that the bracelet asks. When someone’s entire perception of you relies on something impossible to explain, what do you say?

A figure representing the artist sits in the center of the drawing, her body faces the viewer with her legs crossed and her face is buried in her arms at a table coming from the left side. The figures hair is obscuring her features while hands of various sizes drawn in pen and cross hatching are clawing for her from the frame as well as from behind her. On the table there are three orange pill bottles; there are two standing upright and the third, most forefront one, is spilling onto the table; the artist's signature is found in the label of the overturned bottle. The background is rubbed with charcoal to represent haziness in the moment before sleep. The matting is a cool white and on the inside is a thin sliver of orange matting to match the pill bottles. The wood frame is painted silver with a slightly beaten look to match the theme of exhaustion portrayed in the art.

PTSD: The Fear of Sleep Induces Addiction By: Aliza Yudkowsky (née Cohen)

Created in 2015, this piece serves as an artistic homage/pastiche mostly of Francisco de Goya's print ""The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters"" and Leonardo da Vinci's pen studies detailing precise human anatomy; while simultaneously portraying the artist's personal battle with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, sleep, and body memories as a childhood sexual abuse survivor.

The artist's original signature from 2015 can be found in the label of the overturned pill bottle spilling onto the table where the figure (representing the artist herself) is cradling her head facedown in a desperate attempt to sleep, despite the vivid body memories of the harm she experienced and depicted as detailed drawings of hands that claw and grasp at her in that hazy moment between wake and sleep.

A full-length off-white hospital gown hangs from a white plaster bust cast in the shape of the artist’s chest, suspended in space. The gown is covered in layered blue cyanotype photographs, including fragmented portraits, medical imagery, interior spaces, and close-up body details. Bright orange-red embroidered text stands out sharply across the surface, with phrases including “see mood handouts,” “she is just overweight,” “likely due to stress/anxiety,” and “I hope she doesn’t have hypochondriases.” Muted blue embroidered text blends into the cyanotypes and includes phrases such as “postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome,” “mild bone marrow edema,” and “BP acutely dropped to 62/0.” The fabric hangs loosely with visible wrinkles and folds, while overlapping blue imagery creates a layered patchwork across the garment.

See mood handouts By: Lydia Wickham

See Mood Handouts critiques the American healthcare system through a twelve-year medical journey. A hospital gown sourced from a past scan is layered with cyanotypes of personal photographs and embroidered text from medical records. Bright orange phrases mark what providers prioritized, while blue text blends into the imagery, reflecting symptoms and experiences that were overlooked or dismissed. The work questions whose understanding of the body is trusted: the patient’s lived experience or the systems that interpret it.

A necklace featuring layered stainless steel silver colored chains with small silver beads, black tourmaline stone chunks, black spinel faceted beads, smoky quartz tear drop shaped pendants, and a large faceted centerpiece of black jasper. Each stone has been hand wrapped with silver wire to create the base of the necklace. Several layers of chains drop down in swooping curves off of the main necklace.

Zagreus By: Cierra Raitz

Zagreus is associated with the Underworld and rebirth in Greek mythology. Neither living nor dead, similar to my experience with disability. This rosary style chain shows the fragile nature of my DNA; layered chains show that invisible disabilities still weigh me down and make me feel imprisoned in my own body. I included black tourmaline, a fragile, protective stone, smoky quartz to show shadowed isolation, and black spinel known for promoting emotional resilience.

The background is of our community garden including the cob kitchen and people meandering in the background. The foreground depicts a non binary individual with glasses smiling and paired with my dog that is a smiling long haired fluffy mutt. The background is in color, mostly greens and blues with a terracotta colored cob kitchen in the very back. The people and my dog are in black, grey, and white high contrast.

Little Piece of Heaven By: Barbie Huffman

I have struggled with PTSD since 2002 and it has over time developed into a tendency to isolate and be agoraphobic but one of the two places I can handle being at for more than an hour at a time without getting "twitchy" is our community garden which is pictured with one of the regulars and my emotional support dog Tashi who literally saved my life. She is my world.

A circular digital artwork titled Nucle(i) representing Mixed Connective Tissue Disease. Four stippled orbs merge at the center — teal for Scleroderma, blue for Sjögren's, red and blue for Rheumatoid Arthritis, and a blended fourth for MCTD. A butterfly with Lupus butterfly rash coloring rests atop the orbs. The composition is enclosed in a cell-like circle against a deep black background dotted with small white immune cells.

Nucle(i) by Keaka Julia

Nucle(i) represents my disability, Mixed Connective Tissue Disease(MCTD). Using a stipple effect, I created four orbs: Scleroderma/Systemic Sclerosis (textured teal for fibrosis), Sjögren’s (blue for loss of moisture), Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) (red and blue for churning inflammation and stiffness), and MCTD (an amalgamation of the 3). Atop the orb sits a unique butterfly, its wings sporting the colors of Lupus’ hallmark symptom, “the butterfly rash.”

A colorful mashup of iconography clutters the piece. Starting at the top (from left to right): an orange eye, cutout letters spelling out "Create the Life You Want", and a sunflower. The middle (from left to right): Teardrops from the eye rain down, bendy pencils tied together follow down in a zig-zag, a hand with black painted nails and sparkle stickers surrounding it. At the bottom, sticky notes, scraps, and straw wrappers are strewn about in a way that make them look like they're falling off the piece. To the left is a collection of blue sticky notes cascading down with various attempts at writing the phrase "I hope these tears dry soon." To the right is a flipbook titled "See the Stars" with an animated star flying in an arc. Yellow sticky notes with various doodles of hearts and a cat are pasted between them along with a rainbow scratchboard. One of the straw wrappers has tears made of glue dangling off from it. The other wrapper has a red telephone drawn onto it. The left and right sides of the piece are lined with tinfoil.

CReaTE THE LiFE yOu wAnt (Create the Life You Want) by Louise

I like to find qualities in things most people would throw away, from shiny seals on bottles to straw wrappers. This is a collage of trash, scraps, and stationery on layers of pen, marker, and chalk pastel.

This piece demonstrates what can be made possible with undesired objects and their perceived imperfections, reflecting my own experience with being othered for my disability and expressing myself in spite of those challenges.

A hand-forged railroad spike twisted open to hold a hand-tumbled glass marble at its center. The dark textured metal contrasts with the smooth frosted marble, combining industrial strength with softness and transformation.

Held Together by Jessthebest_Arts

This piece began as an old railroad spike from a personal collection belonging to someone I loved. After loss, I cut the metal open and brought it into the Toledo Museum of Art to be heated and reshaped. Inside, I placed a marble from the same collection—one I tumbled for weeks by hand—before twisting the metal back around it.

The process mirrors grief itself: breaking open, holding something fragile, and choosing to rebuild anyway. This work preserves memory through transformation, binding past and present into a single form.

Action splashes of black ink with pink, purple and blue watercolor droplets surround a centered & floating anatomical heart. The heart is a deep toned pink, purple and cobalt blue. The arteries and veins are made up of hundreds of contrasting colored dots. A soft, white, cloud-like shape meets the edges of the arteries with small pink veins traveling the length of the heart. There are tiny flecks of sparkly salt adhered to the paper and dried paint.

Salty Heart by Sara Busler

I painted this while anxiously preparing for a new cardiologist. I'm a trifecta patient, I have POTS, EDS and MCAS. These conditions cause my heart to struggle to properly circulate blood. This affects my cognition, consciousness, digestion and more. Salt and hydration helps stabilize my conditions. My heart is centered since my world revolves around its care. I applied gouache, watercolors and salt to form patterns. More at: Buslermade.com

Watercolor painting depicting a visibly upset light-skinned figure with multiple physical injuries, pulling a wolf pelt tight around their head and shoulders. Faint words are written across a gradient background in a cool color scheme.

Crying Wolf by Laura Ellstrom

My intention behind Crying Wolf is an inversion of the "wolf in sheep's clothing" parable; in order to remain safe, we sometimes must hide our vulnerabilities and blend in with the pack. Survival is not always pretty, and so the figure wears physical representations of the emotional wreckage. While the title may be taken literally, I am also referencing The Boy Who Cried Wolf, to reflect the treatment I received over my sensitivities before receiving my ADHD diagnosis.