I wasn’t meant to be a life model. My sister and I had started running online life drawing classes during the first lockdown, and for one portrait class, when a friend couldn’t model, I thought: I’ll just do it. I was born with a cleft lip and palate and all my life I’ve had to endure people staring at me. When you have a visible difference, you can feel the stares on you. Putting myself in front of a group of people, who were there to look and then draw me, felt liberating. I felt as if I was reclaiming the stare – like I was inviting these artists to look at me with positivity and respect, rather than staring to be nosy or hateful.
I had started to become aware I looked different from other people when I was about four. My parents were conscious that I should be around children who looked like me, and were good at taking me to cleft lip and palate groups, but when I started school I became more aware of my visible difference. Children would have problems with me over nothing – I think because they felt uncomfortable.
