Artist showcase

Side profile portrait of a young Asian woman with long black hair tied back in a loose bun. Her right hand is gracefully held up and slightly opened, with the palm facing the sky. A large purple butterfly hovers above, having just been released. Her gaze is held on the butterfly, in awe of its sheer beauty. Blue watercolour flowers can be seen in the background, weaving up to the sky behind her opened hand. The image has primary tones of violet, blue, and teal. The background contains layers of ripped paper of different colours and transparencies, to create a whimsical dream-like aesthetic.
Image description: Side profile portrait of a young Asian woman with long black hair tied back in a loose bun. Her right hand is gracefully held up and slightly opened, with the palm facing the sky. A large purple butterfly hovers above, having just been released. Her gaze is held on the butterfly, in awe of its sheer beauty. Blue watercolour flowers can be seen in the background, weaving up to the sky behind her opened hand. The image has primary tones of violet, blue, and teal. The background contains layers of ripped paper of different colours and transparencies, to create a whimsical dream-like aesthetic.

Wings of Hope

by Christina Baltais

For Opera Mariposa’s 2024 Benefit + Awareness Month, the Mariposa team was thrilled to commission a new collage by Christina Baltais, a.k.a. Words as Medicine. Christina explains, “This collage was inspired by a common dream many of us living with ME/CFS, Long Covid and fibromyalgia have; a future with treatment options and possibly even a cure.”

Every aspect of the collage has a deeper meaning: “The woman releases a butterfly into the sky, which is symbolic for the wish she carries deep in her heart – that one day she will be free to take flight as she chooses.” The colours of blue, teal and purple represent the Awareness colours for ME, Long Covid and fibromyalgia.

Christina Baltais (she/her) is an artist who resides in Toronto, Canada. She has lived with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME, also known as ME/CFS) for the past 18 years and draws on her personal experience of chronic illness to create collage, photography, sculpture, and makeup art. She has also been involved in organizing fundraising and advocacy initiatives, such as the annual ME/CFS Art Auction and the May 12th #GoBlueForMECFS campaign. She is a patient partner with ICanCME Research Network‘s steering committee and the medical education working group. ME is a deeply stigmatized and contested illness, and she hopes her work is one ripple in the wave of change the ME community desperately needs for greater awareness, compassion, research funding, and treatments.


Enjoy Christina’s work? Until June 1, 2025, enter to win a prize pack of her art & handcrafted jewelry, in support of the ME | FM Society of BC!

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