April for artists - Introduction

I am taking part in April For Artists this month, run by FailLikeAnArtist on Instagram. I’ll be putting these posts here on the blog and on IG.

It’s super hero background story time!

I’m Jo and I’m an environmental engineer by training and a watercolour artist by circumstance. I live in Perth, WA and I grew up in Albany and Australind. Waterways and working to connect people with ecosystems is my jam! I’ve been chronically ill since 2011, right as I became a Proper Adult, but I still got to do my dream job, working as an environmental engineer.

I was disabled by a pregnancy in 2020 and lost all my muscle thanks to Hyperemesis Gravidarum. It wasn’t my first time pregnant with this nasty complication. This time, though, the medicine stopped working and I got dehydrated and starved. My body used up my muscle to keep me alive. My medical team kept me alive and pregnant, but I didn’t fully appreciate how disabled I was. My husband became my full time carer, full time parent of our older child, and working full time. I couldn’t care for myself or be left alone for long. This continued after I’d given birth to our second child in 2021.

A year postpartum, I wasn’t well enough to go back to the PhD I’d been working on. But I’d promised my husband his 4 months parental leave, which required that I was studying or working at least part-time. I worked out the one thing I COULD do was draw and paint.

In March 2022, I opened the ASIC website, applied for an ABN, registered my business name and got painting.

It’s now 2 years later and I am much stronger, and much better at art! I love painting all our awesome wildlife and flowers.