Despite being paralyzed from the shoulders down and unable to use sign language, artist Sara Jane Parsons quickly found a way to communicate with Tony-award-winning dancer Jimmy Turner—who is deaf—when she first encountered him in January 2005.
“I realized it’s not really different than talking to anybody else in a language that’s not English and where English isn’t their first language,” Parsons told People, recounting their initial interactions.
The 61-year-old woman said when she first met Turner, 71, she “just saw this bright, shiny person” leaning against an amplifier to feel the music’s vibrations at an Austin break-dancing competition.
After their first chance encounter, Parsons saw Turner again months later, and they exchanged phone numbers. That very week, Turner had a neighbor call to schedule their first date for him. Though he doesn’t drink, he arrived at Parsons’ house with a bottle of red wine, which happened to be her favorite.
“It was so sweet,” she says of the romantic gesture.
Twenty years later, their relationship is so deep that they have created their own language. Parsons explained that “his language is really intuitive to me. He’s able to read lips and has created a unique form of communication, which Parsons describes as a mix of American Sign Language (ASL) and American Indian Sign Language (AISL).
“I like to call it JSL,” Parsons joked, reprising Turner’s first name. “I try to mimic with my body and my face as much as I can the signs that he’s created.”
Parsons, who paints with her mouth, is one of twelve artists selected for the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists 2026 calendar.
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She said she was honored to be chosen from the hundreds of artists who entered the annual competition, a choice fully supported by Turner. She recalled Turner telling her, “you’re famous now,” when she told him the news.
In the summer of 1984, when Parsons was a 20-year-old college student, her focus was more on her then-boyfriend, whom she still fondly calls her “first love,” than on painting. It was during this time that she got paralyzed.
They had planned a camping trip with her sister and her sister’s boyfriend in northeast Minnesota, Parsons’ home state. The two couples left early in the morning to arrive at the rugged and remote Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in time to launch their canoes.
Their plan was to watch the sunrise from the water before finding a place to set up camp.
A few hours into their trip, another car hit the back of their car. Parsons was in the back of the small car with her head on her boyfriend’s lap during the crash. She recalls being on the floor, losing consciousness.
“I just remember hearing my sister say, ‘We should exit for gas,’ ” Parsons recalled. “And then just a huge roar and rumble and stars behind my eyes.”
Parsons suffered a spinal cord injury, while her boyfriend broke a couple of ribs.
Despite a difficult physical and emotional recovery after her accident, Parsons found a new focus. She finished law school at the University of California, Berkeley, and passed the California bar exam.
She worked at an AIDS service organization as a lawyer until 2004.
Parsons’ life changed when she moved from California to Austin to become a full-time artist.
She started painting in law school, and it is special to her because it was the one skill she didn’t have to relearn “in a new way, post-accident.”
“A lot of what I do is work from my memories of when I was able-bodied,” she says and many of Parsons’ winter scenes are reminiscent of the woods behind her childhood house in Minnesota.
“I think about the smells and the sounds and what it was like walking through the woods and the fall,” says the painter. “It’s almost like the light is almost golden because the leaves are all yellow. I draw a lot on good memories.”
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Parsons thanked the Mouth and Foot Painting Artists (MFPA) for helping her develop her creativity and for being a supportive group. The MFPA also complimented her work, recognizing her skill.
Jim March, Director of North American Operations at MFPA, in a statement shared with People, said, “Sara Jane’s passion, talent and charming personality are always highlighted within the beauty of her paintings. Therefore, it gave us great pride and immense pleasure to select her delightful painting of chickadees for the January page of our 2026 calendar.”
Meeting Turner brought Parsons great happiness, which balanced the joy she already found in painting.
Beyond sharing a sense of humor, Turner and Parsons also bond through their love for animals and dedication to family. The couple shares two godchildren, and Turner has two daughters from a previous relationship.
“We both love dancing, so that’s something that we like doing together,” Parsons shared. “He makes me laugh, I make him laugh… And I just think we share a lot of foundational compatibility.”
Parsons and Turner celebrated their relationship with a “Forever Love Celebration” for their families in Portland, Maine, in 2012. Their shared artistic spirit is one of the profound connections that bind the couple.
Parsons, speaking about the humorous reality of being in a relationship with a fellow artist, shared, “We laugh about it a lot. We’re like, ‘Well, we’re not both supposed to be poor artists, but here we are.’”
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