British | Jamaican
I identify as a mixed-race ceramicist and am a fierce, independent woman. I have a mental health condition but I am proud to say I don’t let it define me and I work to maintain it. As someone who struggles with dyslexia I am able to say I am more interested in wanting to grow my academic reading. Dyslexia and my mental health don’t define me but it has helped me realise how determined I am to prove what I can achieve.
My family is brilliantly dysfunctional. My Mum is British and my Dad is British Jamaican. He was born in the UK, but my Grandparents were from Jamaica. They met at church when they were both teenagers. My Dad walked up to my Mum, introduced himself and she just stared back trying to hide her smile whilst blushing. The only word that came out was hi. They married at the end of the 90s and waited ten years to have my brother and I. The wedding was a combination of the two cultures, with curry goat in the evening and a buffet for the reception. My Grandmother actually made an extra wedding cake. She always thought you could never have too much food (fruit rum cake). They told me it was a struggle being an interracial couple in the 80s and early 90s, people used to say ‘are you not worried what your kids will be like’ and would give them looks. However, they looked past peoples ignorance as they knew why they loved each other and what was important, not what other people thought of them. They also say it’s worth it now seeing my sibling and I grow and find our own identities.
My Dad and Mother made it an importance to spend time with each family. My Dad never saw his Jamaican culture as something different as he was born in England. His parents brought him up to know where he came from, but also to experience his own British culture. My Grandmother taught my Mother some Jamaican recipes before she died, we also used to go to my Grandads domino's club. As a family we try to attend my Fathers extended family occasions; from weddings to funerals and we attend the nine nights. It is respectful and it still brings me closer to my Grandparents' culture. I feel the older we are getting and the more of our Jamaican community we lose I am fading away from the traditions but there are certain things like the food and the values my Jamaican Grandparents had.
My mental health hit rock bottom a year and a half ago in the last year of my art degree. I had lost all hope and couldn’t get out of bed for days. I was still doing my degree and the days I couldn’t get out of bed I would just feel the clay. I ended up devolving my ceramic practice through this hard time by writing down my thoughts and ripping them up and making it part of my paper clay making process. I thought I wouldn’t get through, but this helped me realise the determination in myself and the reflection that ceramics is my passion. I can't live without it. I managed to complete my degree through the worst time in myself and became the first person in my family to go to university.
I grew up in a village and went to a school where I was a minority. When you are small you don’t think about looking different to your classmates, and the thought of just wanting to fit in with the majority. However, these thoughts started to become a question from the age of ten. I wanted to be like my friends who had long straight hair and my Barbie dolls I played with. I also remember a kid at school used to try and touch my hair. Due to this I straightened my hair everyday until there wasn’t a curly strained in sight. I have regretted this for years and now only straighten my hair three times a year or so. Hair is an important symbol of beauty in most cultures for women and is the same in the western world. In my research I looked at identity and the effect skin bleaching has on the identity of Black women. Doing this made me realise how relaxers and straighteners are also products to suppress our heritage and mixed identity.
I have loads of role models but I would have to say the late Maya Angelou. Her line ‘still I rise’ keeps me going everyday. In her life, and throughout this poem she rises through all the negative experiences and it empowers me to do the same. My Dad is also a huge role model to me. He doesn’t pretend to be perfect and he is always there when I need him. He has been through mental health struggles in his life too and it took all he had left to admit it and to get help. In Jamaican culture they don’t really talk about these topics but he always talks about how we are feeling and although it’s frustrating sometimes I know now as an adult he has taught me key life skills.
I think we all need to ask more questions to learn and understand everyone's heritage and how great we actually are. As a mixed-race woman I understand the privilege I hold and how important it is to be an advocate. I also want to learn more about how we can change the subconscious biases we all get as children. The older my friends and I get, the more we appreciate our differences. They have told me they didn’t understand how different I felt when we were younger.
When I was younger I believed that I had to change to appear like all the people on tv. I thought no one would like me, I was so wrong. I think the older we get and the more we explore our own identities they will evolve and branch out into different areas of our life, this makes up one whole identity.
My workplace is a mental health organisation and I definitely feel represented. There are young advisors from all over the country with different backgrounds and cultural backgrounds. Two people the other day were talking about how cool it is to feel comfortable and talk about our different experiences. I was used to being a minority and then being around mixed cultures at college so I was used to a similar experience when going to university. The only problem I had was that some people thought I was just tanned or the opposite.
I think there needs to be more representatives of ethnic minorities in the arts. There is a lot more representation of ethnic minorities however not many women. As a ceramicist I believe we all have something to say, and express our journeys through art. When I was a teacher assistant at a college one of the students decided to carry out her project of paradise interpreting equality for her. She has a mixed heritage background too and I think a turning point for her was seeing a Black artists exhibition and how powerful and great every voice in the world is. To see someone of ethnic background achieve a solo exhibition and create such powerful reflections inspired myself and I hope her.
I literally cry most of the time and I have started to tell myself that it is okay to let out how I feel now and then and crying is not always a negative thing. I had a cry during my last session with my therapist who is moving on. I have been with him for a year now and it took a lot for me to feel like I can open up to a health professional again, but I got there with him. He made me realise how much I have achieved in the last few weeks from having to go to my graduation without my parents because they had covid. They have always supported me in anything I want to achieve in life. They always said they just want me to be happy.