Also known as multiple personality traits— a system, a walking stargate, the opening through which the art arrives.
There’s a hand drawing the lines, and then there’s the soul doing the seeing.
In our studio, it’s not always the same soul.
When I say “we,” I’m not being poetic. I mean it. The art you see in these collections is created from a shared body but not a single mind.
I don’t draw most of what you see. I’m the writer.
I love words. I craft these posts. I name the collections.
But the drawings—especially the ones that feel the most intricate, the most emotional, the most precise—they come from Jade.
Jade is the birth soul in this body. She’s the artist. She sees in color, even when drawing in black lines. She feels people’s shapes. Their silences. Their wounds. And she translates all of that directly through the pen, like it bypasses language entirely.
When I draw, I’m usually sharing the front with her.
But the truth is, the better the drawing—the more hers it is.
And I know because the moment it’s done, I get nervous.
Not just the usual artist sensitivity… but a deeper tremble, like a mother who is nervous for her child:
They’re going to see something I didn’t even draw.
They’re going to look at something I only held the pen for.
“This is her body. I think she deserves to live in it. I think she deserves to come out of the shadows in a safe space.”
That’s part of why this art exists at all.
Not just to be sold, or praised, or shared—but to give Jade somewhere safe to return to. Somewhere, she can be seen without being confronted.
The collections become her way of stepping out.
Of being present in a world that hasn’t always been kind.
And when she feels safe—when her hands are truly moving—we all feel it.
On the Others:
There are other parts of us—David and Gabrielle.
They don’t draw.
They influence us. Their thoughts shape ideas. But they never come forward when we’re making art.
Only Jade and I share that space.
And even then, Jade rarely wants to be front. She lives in retreat. She’s nine. She remembers too much.
But art… it softens that.
It gives her permission to come forward without having to explain herself.
That’s the miracle of creation for us.
Not just making something beautiful.
But making a doorway for someone inside to walk through.
Closing Thought:
So when you see the Awkward Paper Doll or the ShadeRoom Collection, you’re not just seeing a style. You’re witnessing who had enough trust to step forward. The lines aren’t just design—they’re evidence.
Proof that someone, once hidden, found their way into the light—if only for a moment.
Thanks for listening — Janel.
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