MARTIN VOGEL
Martin Vogel has a talent for invention… and for reinvention. His life so far has included several successful careers in vastly different fields, and his potential for more is unlimited. In fact, limitation in any form is an unknown concept to Vogel. He likes a challenge, and he puts his heart and soul into everything he does.
His first career was racing motorcycles. He jumped into that sport at the tender age of 5, started road racing at 16, and at 20 was a professional on the American Motorcycle Association Formula 2 circuit. A natural competitor, Vogel was racing grand prix events at tracks such as Laguna Seca and Daytona, Florida. In the midst of his racing success, everything changed. He was warming up on the Infinion Raceway in Sonoma, California, when another cyclist collided with Vogel and sent him flying into the hay bales… then his own bike hit him and broke his back. With a T3 spinal cord injury, he was paralyzed from the chest down. Was his life over at the age of 21? Absolutely not! Vogel is a champion, and that hadn't changed. The usual recovery time for injuries that severe is six or seven months, but Vogel wheeled out of rehabilitation in only seven weeks, with a drive to conquer this new challenge. He also had a new inspiration, another paraplegic had shown him that he could continue racing but in his wheelchair. He encouraged Vogel to enter the Los Angeles Marathon. At first Vogel was skeptical about taking on such a demanding, physical feat, only a couple months out of rehab, with all the adjustments he had had to make to his new form of mobility, but his friend helped him believe in himself, and he finished the race. Vogel has since won countless races of various distances in his wheelchair, most recently the Long Beach Marathon in October 2010. He gained sponsorship from McDonald's and toured Europe and North America competing. He is a seven-time world champion in the 5000 meter. He not only made a living for many years racing in his chair, he encouraged other wheelchair athletes as well. He trains as seriously as any other professional, and he is an advocate for the sport to be more widely accepted and promoted. He has custom adapted or invented many of the features of his racing chair, race gear, and specialized equipment and shared his creations with others.
He also races super karts (and can be seen on YouTube in them), having designed hand controls to drive the kart. His real victory there, however, is in coaching young competitors in the sport. Kids are Vogel's favorite companions, and he loves teaching them life lessons while sharing his understanding of how to be a champion.
Racing is not Vogel's only passion. At the same time he was first learning how to ride a bike, he also discovered a love for creating art. From childhood he has enjoyed illustration, pottery, welding sculpture, watercolor, and painting in acrylic. His high school art teacher was a special mentor to him, and after his accident she helped him channel his emotions and boundless energy into an art career. He continued his exploration through college classes and private study, especially in the mastery of color.
Then one day he was going up a trail with some friends, and when he turned around to wait for them to catch up, he noticed all the tracks he had made in the dirt. Recognizing the potential for a new method of painting, he started practicing down at the park making patterns on the ground with his wheelchair. He then rigged up an old chair with devices to apply paint to the wheels, which could then be transferred directly onto a canvas. Thus began his invention of wheelchair painting, which has since inspired other artists. Vogel paints elaborate patterns with his wheelchair, sometimes in beautiful symmetry, other times with more wild abandon. His subjects are usually abstract, but he has also outlined elegant nudes, using only his wheels. Then, he paints between the lines in eye-catching color combinations, creating canvases rich in visual harmony. His works range in size from 1' x 1' to 6' x 7' to massive 4' x 22' creations. He has also done series of three and six panels in a row. The finished painting might be dark and elaborate, with painstaking detail in the process, or it could be bright, graphic, and fun.
To date he has completed over 800 canvases, as well as hundreds of works in other media. He has painted large commissions for hotels, offices, and restaurants. He has held exhibitions all over California as well as in Washington, D.C. and Texas. He has appeared in numerous magazines, newspapers, and television programs. He got more high-profile exposure when he was invited to paint the Olympic rings in front of the President of the I.O.C., and another one of his pictures was made into a poster for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Vogel also has a dream of bringing more art outlets to children. He often demonstrates his techniques at school assemblies, and he loves teaching kids to explore their own artistic potential. He hopes to raise money for public school programs and to continue to be a mentor to young people to believe in their own futures. Anyone who encounters Martin Vogel is invariably impressed with his artwork, inspired by his story, and intrigued by his personality. What he invents next, with his artwork and his life, we can't wait to see.
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