Who am I?

I am a dyslexic mother, wife, sister, daughter, artist, and runner. All six of these identities orbit around one another to make me who I am. Dyslexia has become a defining part of my personality as an adult. At first, my relationship with Dyslexia wasn’t great. We were dysfunctional, and negative towards each other and I was somewhat ashamed of her. As the years have gone by and I have got to know her better, we are great friends, and I am proud to say she is an intrinsic part of who I am as a mother, wife, sister, daughter, artist, and runner. I find myself flaunting her unconventionality in my artwork as a way of trying to make myself stand out from the crowd.

Together, Dyslexia and I create illustrations that demand our audience to have a sense of humour. Today, we are constantly taking selfies and filtering them to look flawless. Dyslexia and I love humans and thrive off the magical connections that happen on an ordinary day. We set off on an adventure to try and capture human energy in portraiture. We tried to capture people, and ourselves, in our natural unfiltered way, swimming against the social media prerequisite of looking immaculate.

We capture snapshots of our loved ones and recreate them as blue-skinned, glittery winged fairies or simply while they are mid-sentence with their mouths half open to capture them unposed. It is done to try to grab who the sitter is rather than the dress-up, filtered to perfection version humans often try to recreate in portraits or selfies.

Like many other people who are dyslexic, we are often disorderly and impulsive. Once we surrendered and then embraced our chaotic nature, our work became free and in turn truer to who we are. Adding bold colours and a bit of mad disorder to our work helps us to make sense of the lives we lead.

Dyslexia has helped me to always have a plan B, C, and often D. When my daughter Luna was born and stuck to my breast for twenty-three hours a day, I had to find an alternative way to continue to illustrate. An iPad was bought and covered in a case with a sloth contentedly riding a unicorn. Next was a hard, basic, uninspiring white stylus to make my marks with. I reluctantly downloaded the App Procreate wondering how I was going ever going to be able to illustrate digitally. It felt so wrong and improper. Although I enjoyed staring at my new bundle of joy for hours and hours, I found I required a creative release more than ever before. So, I stuck at it. At first, the work created was mediocre and exasperating. As the weeks sat feeding ticked by, I learned how to layer the chaotic layers of my brain onto my iPad in a way I had not been able to do on paper.