Awareness Critters
An interview with Brittany Huston, Creator and Artist
Hands & Voices HQ sat down with Brittany Huston to learn more about how her Awareness Critters came to be. We just knew we needed to share the Critters with our Hands & Voices parents.
Huston shared that by some miracle, her children had fallen asleep early one night, and she planned to get some sleep herself, if at all possible. Her brain, though, wouldn’t stop spinning. She thought about her family life and how it was so much different than the life of most of their friends. Both of her babies, now two- and four-years-old, are medically complex. Huston shared that they have spent more time in the hospital or at the doctor’s office than most. She saw all the medical debt continuing to rise with no end in sight. Treading water emotionally and financially so much of the time, she felt terrified and helpless seeing her kids face a rare disease. She prayed the same desperate prayer that she had said many times before “Please help me figure this out! Please help me take care of my family!”
Next, a fully formed idea flashed in her mind. She saw a line of illustrations featuring animals with different special and rare needs. Animals come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Lists and images started zipping through her brain and instead of falling asleep she rolled over and reached for a pad of paper. Several hours later, her paper was filled with ideas for different animals. She sketched and painted her first illustration of the “Awareness Critters.”
Hesitantly, she posted her first painting to a personal Facebook page the next morning and sent it to a few online support groups as well. She was flooded by positive responses and requests for illustrations to feature specific issues– diabetes, vision loss and patching, Gtubes, NG tubes, leg braces, epilepsy, hearing aids, and so many more. Obviously, here was a big need not being met.
A friend with a similarly complex child asked if she had ever thought about doing coloring pages. Huston loved this idea! She was always drawing for her kids to keep them busy during office visits or while waiting at a lab. But surely someone else had thought of this idea? Coloring pages are such an easy way to keep a child (or adult) busy and rest their mind during stressful times. They are also an easy, quick way to spread awareness. One can also introduce a subject, such as a blood draw or new diagnosis, to a child in a way that is not threatening and help prepare them for what is coming in their near future. While there were a few out there, most did not have the detail that parents had been requesting.
While her original intention was to focus on illustrations, coloring pages have been easier for the artist to create during the many challenges life has thrown her way as kids become more complex. They will wait for a late night or while sitting in the car with a sleeping child.
Mary and Anne
Mary and Anne Mouse are an illustration, short story, and coloring page about a mother mouse and her child who is hard of hearing. These Critters were inspired by Huston’s own daughter. How easily she could have acquired hearing loss due to ototoxic antibiotics she required during her early stay in NICU. “Those critters could have been our story. When we learned about the potential side effects of her life-saving antibiotics, this was not my first introduction to the world of deaf and hard of hearing children. Homeschooled as a child, I had a very dear friend of my mom’s who was an ASL interpreter who taught us and took us to community events.” She took a few classes in college and adored them, but even more, she adored the vibrant community she was introduced to at the time. While ultimately pursuing a different path, she feels blessed that she met so many wonderful people who befriended her while learning sign language. Currently, sign language is helping their mostly nonverbal younger son, now two, communicate with her family.
What happens next? Huston hopes that families of adults and children who are deaf/hard of hearing, deafblind, and those with special needs know that they are not alone as they are reaching a “new normal”. Their loved ones are seen, heard, and loved for who they are (not how the media, society, or even sometimes our friends and family members say they “should be”). “Awareness Critters wants to support and celebrate uniqueness. Each one of us brings something special to this world– and that is something that should always be celebrated!”
Huston has big dreams for these Critters. Right now, she hopes her Inclusive Coloring Pages find their way into classrooms, doctor’s and therapy offices, hospitals and labs. Someday, seeing a coloring page with a character that has spots, hearing aids, braces, etc won’t be a surprise. Someday, the Critters will help support her family. (Right now everything Huston does for Awareness Critters is posted for free and she relies on people to make donations to help offset the cost of creating designs and running the website. In the mean time, she enjoys giving back in her own way, and hopes that “rare or low incidence” won’t mean “unheard of” much longer. ~
Editor’s note: See the illustrations and coloring pages at AwarenessCritters.com