Aimee Hoffman, painter and founder of Aimee Hoffman Fine Art, who was diagnosed with Transverse myelitis that confined her to a wheelchair, continues to paint and said she felt a "sense of peace" when she first felt the paint hit the canvas.

<div class="block">Aimee Hoffman, painter and founder of Aimee Hoffman Fine Art, who was diagnosed with Transverse myelitis that confined her to a wheelchair, continues to paint and said she felt a &quot;sense of peace&quot; when she first felt the paint hit the canvas.</div>

On a Positive Note

On a Positive Note: Woman Finds Purpose Through Painting Despite Serious Medical Diagnosis

My favorite time to paint is first thing in the morning, bright and early Amy Hoffman begins each painting session. Like most artists, I wake up with a color palette in mind. I'm really inspired by the water. She sets up her studio today, we're gonna start with some blues, creates the perfect color. I make my own fluid acrylics and the water helps me adjust the consistencies and puts paint to canvas. But her work is anything but traditional. Back in the year of 2006, I started losing sensation in my legs and it happened over the course of a few hours in one day. So I was rushed the hospital and they diagnosed me with something called transverse myelitis. It's an inflammation in the spinal cord. The doctors told me there is a chance you may never walk again. I mean those words of you may never walk again. Just hit me like a punch in the stomach during the difficult months that followed in the hospital, Amy was introduced to a therapeutic art program. I will never forget the first moment when the paint hit the canvas. When I started painting, I just felt a sense of peace just wash over right then. And there at that moment, I knew that there was hope in the future, that hope is evident as she transforms her canvas with acrylic paint and her wheelchair. I roll over the canvas and I don't worry about it because this is my painting wheelchair and it just creates these natural track marks on the canvass you'll see as the more and more we go on, there will be more and more track marks on the canvas as an Asian female with a disability. I'm in minority groups that have not always been seen or heard in the past or had a seat at the table. So using brighter color palettes is kind of my way of being seen. I encouraged the viewer to see the wheelchairs as tools as catalysts that can move things forward and moving forward. She is Amy is more than just an artist. She's also an athlete currently training for the New York City Marathon. The days that I train, I actually get up earlier than when I paint, which is five AM. And right now I'm training together with my husband. We're on team and we're doing it to raise money to find a cure for paralysis. See how moving was that? What an inspiration?