Meet Brittany Huston | Artist/Illustrator, hobby farmer, and special needs mother

We had the good fortune of connecting with Brittany Huston and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Brittany, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
Desperation. Ok, well that is only part of the reason, but it was a driving force. I started my Awareness Critters art business because I was desperate to find help for my family. I have two medically complex children with Rare diseases. I couldn’t control things like insurance, mounting medical bills, what the doctors did or didn’t do, or even how my children were feeling (that is a hard one when you are a new parent and your child is in such deep pain and you can’t do anything to help them). That left me feeling deeply desperate for some kind of control. One night I was laying in bed praying for help and suddenly the idea of Awareness Critters illustrations and coloring pages popped into my head in a flood of images. It was so intense that I got up and started to sketch, write down notes, and paint. Within a few hours, I had written out a list of ideas and had come up with the beginnings of a business plan. More than that, I had hope. And for me that was huge. While I couldn’t control what happened to my children, I could create art that might make the experiences they went through less scary through playful art and coloring pages.
It turned out that my art has helped as a balm to my soul during increasingly more challenging health issues for my children and during times of hardship. That is one of my favorite things about art- how it can help anyone, no matter their skill level, because the act of creation is a healing one.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I didn’t start off as an artist, or even really ever planned to go into art as a path. My BA from University of New Mexico is in Communication, with a minor in art (because I thought art classes were fun and took a lot of them). I was working on my Masters in Health Communication, when I became pregnant with my daughter. I took a break, thinking I would be able to go back and finish my thesis. I had no idea what life had planned for me, nor later how all encompassing taking care of a special needs child would be (let alone two medically complex children). Even though, my thesis was focused ON special needs families and how they communicated with doctors and got their needs met. Funny how life starts to prepare you for a certain journey. Of course, writing a thesis about special needs parents/families and actually BEING one is so very different in reality.

I don’t think being an artist is ever easy, per say. I would say that even when you have jumped into the professional world as an artist, you are continually striving to become better, as with any career. Art is definitely not a 9 to 5 job, or for me it isn’t, it is more of a life path. Usually, I am working late at night after my children have gone to bed on my own projects or on custom commissions and work. The largest part of my business is currently in custom portraits and logo design, along with illustrations for smaller companies for educational or training purposes. I am working on some personal projects that I am pretty excited about and working to make my dream of illustrating children’s books come to life.

I think what I bring to my work is life experience and passion. Sure people can write or illustrate about things they don’t know about personally, often there is a huge amount of research involved in creating art which allows that. Learning to research is definitely something that my MA program helped me practice doing a lot of. However, until you have actually lived something, you don’t have the full experience or understanding of what it is truly like. Being the mother of two medically complex children has lended me a unique perspective and allowed me to create work that shows that. That is also why it is so important that people support indigenous and BIPOC artists, especially local ones, and not knock-off “native” artwork, that is done by someone who has never even lived in our area, let alone is an indigenous or BIPOC artist.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
The Covid-19 pandemic has closed down or made inaccessible a lot of the places that we liked to go as a family and to show off to friends. However, sharing our favorite hiking spots on the Colorado Trail and visiting local lakes like Vallecito or Lemon is something we still enjoy. We also might visit the Aztec Ruins or go for a walk down by the river. Stopping by Grass Burger, is often on the itinerary as well, as that is one of the few places that is more allergy aware than most restaurants in our area that we have found and makes it safe for us to eat out as a family. If my children are not along for the tour, we would probably stop by Rice Monkey, one of my personal favorites.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My family have been the driving force for my art career. A quick side note, “Career” seems like an odd word when associated with art, as it is a love affair or partnership more than career for me. As career brings about images of a 9 to 5 job where you HAVE to go to work and that many people end up hating. There might be times where I am frustrated by my art, but it isn’t ever anything I HAVE to do or that I could hate.

My mother and grandmother are both artists and painters, my grandfather was a master carver, and my father was a wonderful stained glass artist as well. I grew up around art and always doing art. I was homeschooled for much of my early childhood and my mom was always creative with our lessons and added crafts and art into nearly every aspect. It wasn’t until I went to public high school that I realized that it wasn’t the case in most classes or teachers. So I added art to every aspect that I could in school. Sometimes, a bit too much with a lot of notes being in the form of drawings and that wasn’t always embraced by the teachers. My mom instilled a true love for art and taught me that it didn’t have to be confined to a museum or classroom, but that art was and should be part of every aspect of life.

My children, and children like them, have been my inspiration for moving my passion for art forward as an illustrator and professional artist. I realized there was a significant lack of representation in books and art of children who were medically complex, had special needs, or were considered in some way or another not “typical”. It made me angry and frustrated as a parent that there wasn’t better representation out there, so I decided to try to do something about that. Leg braces, hearing aids, epi pens, and more didn’t have to be seen as scary but just part of life. My kids are my biggest cheering squad, and always asking to see what the newest things I have created looks like.

Website: http://awarenesscritters.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awareness_critters/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AwarenessCritters/

Other: Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/AwarenessCritters