It was so high energy.

Alaska is such a petri dish to just try anything cause I'd never done anything like that.

I'd never displayed my work on a human like that before.

So getting to watch these two models walk the runway for the first time, it was like watching your kids go to school for the first time, like I was crying Novelty.

I really like things that are different.

So a bunch of these, this pair included.

I got in Juneau.

When I started picking out leather jackets and going, like what do I want to draw on this?

What is it telling me that it wants?

It became this exchange where like, the world was my oyster, I could do anything.

I guess I'm not doing that.

Time to pivot.

ADHD strikes again.

And some days it doesn't feel quite as nice, right?

I forget what I'm talking about.

I have a million things going at once, I can be really scattered and chaotic, but I'm learning that it is an extraordinary power.

So when I was going through school, they decided to withhold the [ADHD] diagnosis from my record because that would have meant that I would have needed to stay back a grade So my dad stepped up and basically taught me how to study and how to get through school.

We called him Tutor Dad for a while.

And eventually I learned to use it as a superpower.

I hated it for so many years.

Most of my life.

I just never thought that I was as smart as my peers.

I could never keep up.

I never thought that I was, you know, intelligent.

When I'm able to, I pull from my arm rather than like, trying to pull from my wrist.

It's an old trick from calligraphy, actually.

But I'm learning recently, as in maybe the last year or two years, that I have this well of creativity that goes beyond art.

It goes into my worldview and how I relate to others in a way that is so unique and novel and really starting to tap into and feel confidence from having this wheelhouse.

It's been hard to call myself an artist because I've been a speech pathologist for the last 15 years almost.

I, have been on this fence for probably the last five or so years where I'll hit these walls and go, Is speech really what I want to do?

And it wasn't until I gave myself the permission to start making some of that art that that answer fully revealed itself.

There are a couple of things that we want to just go over before we go out.

The Penny Royalty Fashion Show was such a divine opportunity for me to really showcase my work.

I chose two styles.

One was a coverall.

A vintage Banana Republic coverall that I worked on for six months.

I started and finished it in Alaska.

there was so much of what I had learned in those six months about myself and the world around me that came out through that piece.

and just absolutely, like, awestruck that other people would look at my work with that degree of appreciation and excitement and awe.

So I've been in Alaska for over a decade, and I feel like it's a growing trend where a lot of artists in Alaska are going, 'I'm going to do it anyway regardless because this is what makes me happy and this is what feeds me.'

I really love that community that just lifts one another up.

Thanks for watching this episode of Indie Alaska from Alaska Public Media.

Our work is only made possible by the generous support of our viewers.

Consider supporting Indie Alaska by making a financial donation at the link below.

Thank you.