In this piece, I explored the crossroads of aging with a disability while living with Spina Bifida through this digital art piece created in Adobe Photoshop. Utilizing a photo of bamboo ladders, I photographed them on my street and juxtaposed spinal column images sourced from Adobe Stock. This piece communicates my inability to use ladders safely as I've gotten older by layering and repeating these images. It creates an unsettling rhythm that echoes these limitations. The x-ray effect I created reinforces the internal aspects of the physical limitations I face in this journey with Spina Bifida. 

Vertical Limits

In this art piece, the image of a single vertebra, which I screen-printed and hand-painted layers of fiber-reactive dyes onto raw silk, is a response to my experience of having an unfused part of my vertebrae in my spinal column due to Spina Bifida. The brown and green areas around the vertebrae resemble a sort of earthy womb. This zoomed-in image of a vertebra becomes a memorial representing my lived experience in a body called "not normal” but is actually my normal. 

Memorial to My Normalcy

This work juxtaposes images: a skylight in a Shanghai slaughterhouse has weedy branches obscuring parts of it, and a CT scan of my torso reveals chaotic adhesions from numerous surgeries. The branches resemble the adhesions entwining my organs, reflecting an unexpected takeover that obscures clarity yet defines my norm. This artwork explores how nature and trauma reshape existence, conveying resilience amidst chaos and acknowledging the reality I've not chosen but learning by faith to embrace.

Family Tree of Adhesions

This piece explores my journey through a sensation I would have as a child before surgery. It was a disorienting feeling, as if my bed was turning vertical, and an overwhelming experience I would float away. This sensation would occur before major surgery. Still experience when I have to go through a procedure.

  
On the sides of the piece, I obscured parts of the rib cage, creating triangular shapes that could almost resemble palm leaves. This speaks to me trying to make sense of what I was going through, trying to cope with the disconnection I've often felt.

Floating Through It

This is one of two mages where I digitally explore struggles I've encountered with what is, in fact, my normal. I layer personal architectural photographs from Shanghai with anatomical spine images in Adobe Photoshop, manipulating these layers to create a slithering central image. The serpentine movement of the spines up a staircase symbolizes the twisted journey of navigating life with this congenital disability. I'm looking to communicate the beauty and yet the struggle with this condition.

Translucent Truths, 2

Vertical Limits 1

This artwork is an ode to my maternal grandmother, FloRae, known for her spicy personality, which contributed to her unique perspective on life. Her Southern drawl often reassured me that my "normal" was normal, a sentiment I embody in this artwork. Through a surrealistic arrangement of body parts in illogical and bizarre manners, with this raw silk piece, I explore the concept of what it is like to live in a body that doesn't function like others. Infused with colors of golds to earthy browns, this piece captures the poignancy of embracing my normal, my milagros.

Milagros for Lulu

This textile piece was inspired by a traumatic incident from my childhood at age 10\. On a bright March "kite day" in Oklahoma, I went to get water in our vacant school building at the event and encountered a man who accosted me. I spent years believing my disability, Spina Bifida, caused this violation, leading to deep self-blame. The ghost-like spine images on raw silk symbolize my fears that this might be true. The female figures reflect my wish that my body didn’t exist at that time; I believed that without Spina Bifida, this somehow wouldn’t have happened. This piece may make viewers uncomfortable, but it highlights how the most vulnerable can suffer abuse and the deep shame it can bring.

Inner Turmoil

This digital artwork explores ideas of memory, trauma, and identity. I combined two photographs that I took: one of the plate glass windows in my apartment building, backlit in Christmas red and green, and the other of a flower from my grandparents’ garden. This flower holds significance, as my grandfather witnessed a plate glass window falling on me at age eight, almost cutting me in half. This occurred one day after Christmas in 1979\. I utilized open-source images of broken glass and spinal columns. In my child mind at the time, I believed that this accident was a result of my Spina Bifida. This piece invites viewers to consider traumatic experiences and reflect on how these moments might shape identity. This crazy accident drove me to understand what is a bruised reed.

Bruised Reed

This artwork utilizes fiber-reactive dye and dye remover through various printmaking techniques like katazome paper stencils, hand-painting, and screen printing on raw silk. Living with Spina Bifida—a congenital birth defect—I explore the complexities of identity, drawing inspiration from surrealistic imagery. I like to arrange imagery illogically and bizarrely, reflecting feelings about my body.

Spina Complexity of My Mind

In August 1995, when I woke from emergency surgery on my foot, I knew a prayer was being answered. This piece, created with layers of hand-painted and screen-printed dye and dye remover on raw silk, depicts the sinews of a foot and recalls this pivotal moment, inspiring the title "It Is Good." The composition, influenced by Mexican retablos, features earthy colors and highlights the connective tissue of tendons and muscles that hold the foot together. This reflects my realization that my foe, Spina Bifida, was, in fact, being used for my good.

It Is Good

"TTB" stands for Ticking Time Bomb, a digital artwork inspired by a lament written in June 2024\. The piece features a photograph I took at the 1933 Old Millfun, a former slaughterhouse in Shanghai that has been transformed into art spaces and cafes. In Adobe Photoshop, I layered CT scans of my torso along the walls, with posters in Chinese script surrounding an inky black locked door, providing context to living in Shanghai. I then placed my CT images along the floor, giving the impression that they are leaking out from the bottom in threes, a triptych. This imagery reflects an honest lament when trying to make sense of impenetrable situations.

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Vanessa Vanek