Creative Connector Updated on Apr 10, 2026 2 min read

Dots and Dashes, A Distress Call from the Time of Covid

Tour-ready project by Troy Lindstrom.

Keywords: illustration, exhibition, visual art

Dots and Dashes: A distress Call from the Time of Covid is about my experience as a person with a disability living in the time of covid. My struggles with mental health. Worries about not having the resources to survive. While outside, the air itself seemed like poison for people at high risk with “comorbidities.”

All amplified the fear of covid. Using lines, dots, and dashes on a large canvas to emphasize the grind of life with a disability during covid. These ideas have been swimming around in my head for a few years now and I want to get them out. As with my other work I want these illustrations to impact the viewer. Using dense line work on a large canvas I want the viewers to see weight in these illustrations. To be overwhelmed without losing the message of each illustration in that weight.

During Covid people felt what living with a disability was like. The isolation, struggle to survive, and feeling of loss was felt by everyone. Those feelings are something the disabled have always lived with. As time goes by, people forget, going back to their old lives after covid while we continue to live those emotions. The series consists of five 72" by 24" in illustrations and accompanying 36" by 12" 3d printed tactile illustration

About the Artist

Troy Lindstrom was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis in his early 20’s. He went through many years of depression and when Troy finally decided to make a life for himself, he found the roadblocks that many people with a disability face. Troy’s art is his purpose.

Troy has always used art as a coping tool, but now he creates through the disability lens his life has given him. Using his art and experience to make people with disabilities visible and confronting the stigma and bias they face. Seeing what is happening to the disabled during the pandemic has shown Troy that the progress they had made through accessibility and inclusion was an illusion. Troy wants to confront those who think we are worth less and celebrate our allies with his illustrations.