I’m happy to share a recent illustrator profile produced by Kids Book Centre. Big thanks to Spencer for writing this article about my work.
Please seen an excerpt below:
“It’s not easy to show the way a child feels about their sibling or grandparent in an illustration—but you do it so well in picture books like Kaiah’s Garden and The Hawk Shadow. How do you bring family relationships to life on the page?
Growing up, I learned a lot about my family through their various expressions, gestures, and family connection. For instance, my late grandfather was a quieter man but I developed a closeness to him by watching his mannerisms — likewise, I always appreciated the ways in which he coaxed my shyness away. As I got older, this skill translated into my ability to watch others carefully to pick up on cues from Elders or noting when a cousin or friend feels a bit withdrawn or when they were secretly amused or curious.
Intuitively, I think these observations helped me emotionally catalogue unique expressions and what they meant for different people. Whether that’s through laughter or mischievous expressions or the look of a parent or grandparent watching over their young ones with great compassion. This has really helped me consider what kind of feelings are shared in certain illustrative scenes between family members.
I also think expressions are so important for children to learn about and reflect on. I have a 4-year old and I often ask her what she thinks a character is feeling in certain scenes in children’s books. As an artist, I hope this adds a visual layer for learning and conversations between caregivers and young children as they read the books I illustrate.
Full of smiles, hugs, shouting and laughter, the characters and families in your illustrations radiate joy. Why is joy so important to your work?
I was raised in a boisterous house full of laughter, yelling, and teasing. When I was a teenager, my adolescent cousins would come down to our house every summer and it was like one big summer camp with so much energy and chaos and juice stained smiles. To me, growing up with laughter is inherent to connection. I just came home from a trip up to my home territory where I spent it laughing over stories with my aunties and cousins, it made me feel happy in the moment but it also restored something deep within me.
So many Indigenous people use laughter to feel a form of togetherness and we use it to help us through hard times. It’s a form of healing that transcends generations. I feel strongly about this aspect of Indigenous identity being represented in children’s books because Indigenous kids need to know their laughter has the power to spread like wildflowers, their ideas deserve to be heard and sometimes yelled, and most importantly, they should be empowered to feel and express themselves as big as they need to.”
You can read the entire interview here.