Renowned Warrnambool artist Simon Rigg — who turned a terrible accident into an extraordinary painting career by holding brushes in his mouth — has died. He was 67.
Simon was 28 when he fell from a shed roof. The injury to his spine left him a quadriplegic.
After months of frustrating rehabilitation, Simon was eventually introduced to mouth-painting in the Austin Hospital.
He didn't take to it immediately but, when he subsequently found himself in a nursing home surrounded by people at the end of their lives, he picked up the hobby again as a way of escaping.
The nursing home was no place for a young man like Simon, and he spoke about how being there took a toll on his happiness.
Over time, Simon learned to paint extraordinary, detailed paintings using the expertly trained muscles in his neck and face to manoeuvre a paint brush he held in his mouth.
And he moved out of care and settled in Warrnambool.
From his home studio, Simon used regular painting brushes that were lengthened by taping an extra portion of stick to their ends.
When beginning a painting, he would use an iPad to view and enlarge photographs. His choice was often of nature or of family and friends.
Simon would then use a sepia brown paint to roughly sketch out the image, then layer each colour.
He would finish with the fine details — the petals of a flower, the highlights on a bird's feathers.
Simon would often put forward the argument that painting with the mouth was possibly more accurate than with the hand, since using a hand required more transitions from the brain to the shoulder to the arm to the hand, whereas his mouth was in direct contact with the brush.
Even so, as he continued layer each colour carefully, as his mouth began to tire, Simon would have to deal with frustrating rogue marks from a slipped brush.
He also contended with severe neck pain from a lifetime of overuse, which — in more recent years — had prohibited him from painting for long periods at a time.
Even just moving back to view the image, or to reach a different area of the painting, required manoeuvring his wheelchair using a limp, stinted hand to operate the joystick on his chair, reversing out, re-angling, moving back towards his easel.
Another difficult thing Simon had to learn was to ask for help — help to pick up a paint brush, help to drink from a cup of tea with a straw, help to do just about every human movement you can imagine.
For able-bodied people, it would be hard to imagine how tiresome it became to have to always ask for for help.
But even chronic pain and the constant need for assistance did not stop Simon from pursuing his passion.
He had breaks from painting, but never laid down his brushes for good.
Over the years, Simon sold much of his artwork through the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists Association, which he joined in 1990.
One of his very popular pieces was a children's picture-alphabet, that was turned into a puzzle and enjoyed by kids across Australia.
Just months before his death, Simon said that, for him, painting was somehow a window to life and described himself as always being a nature boy.
At the time of his spinal injury, Simon had been living in Castlemaine and was a landscape gardener and the superintendent of grounds at the Alexander Home and Hospital.
After losing the ability to hike, work and explore in the great outdoors, Simon translated his love of the outdoors into works of art.
What must have been arduous, and emotionally loaded for him, became a gift to the world in the form of beautiful paintings.
In 2017, Simon reached an artistic pinnacle by entering the Archibald Prize with a self-portrait.
While it did not get short-listed, it fulfilled a lifelong dream Simon had to have a crack at national recognition via the Archibald Prize.
The ABC interviewed Simon about his life and work in late 2020, but just weeks later, Simon was confined to the Austin Hospital's intensive care unit with pneumonia, a disease that can be deadly for people with lack of mobility.
After months in hospital, Simon was recuperating at home and with his adored partner Georgina when he died on July 6.
The funeral service for Simon Rigg will be held at Guyetts Funerals, 271 Raglan Street, Warrnambool, on Friday, July 16, at 10am and live-streamed on the company's website.
