We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Barbara Hulme a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Barbara, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

I am an artist with an interest in society being inclusive – especially concerning health and disability. I was very lucky to have been asked by Laetitia De Guiche to paint her portrait after her having had an operation for breast cancer. She sent me some photographs of herself, revealing her scar and looking glamerous and beautiful too, and said she would find it uplifting.

I painted the portrait and and it sent me into a whole new direction in my art and I decided to start painting sensitive portraits of disabled people and ask them to write their stories in their own words, to accompany their portraits. To help give disabled people a platform on which to be seen and heard without censorship or reinterpretation.

Since making that decision I have painted approximately 50 paintings of disabled people accompanied by their stories in their own words.

Here is an example of one of the stories shared with me by Laura (La Shezza) written in her own words, but she chose to write in in the third person

“In the quiet corners of her cozy world, Laura, a prolific author and a tinkler of the written word, has crafted a life as enchanting as the stories she weaves. Her journey is one of triumph over adversity, sprinkled with humor, creativity, and an enduring love for the furry creatures (particularly black labradors, hamsters and rats) that inhabit her heart.
Though Laura often finds herself confined indoors due to ME (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis), her spirit knows no bounds. Like a wizard, she conjures entire worlds and characters, all while nestled in her haven of creativity.
Her pen dances across pages (or at least, her voice rambles into the dictation software), creating stories that whisk readers away on fantastical adventures. What truly sets Laura apart is her relentless sense of humor. Despite the challenges she faces, her laughter is infectious, like the bloobling of wind chimes on a breezy afternoon.
She finds joy in the simplest of things, infusing her days with a delightful groove that leaves all who meet her with a brighter outlook on life. Just like art, and indeed, all good things in life, a positive outlook takes work – a lifetime thereof.
Laura hopes that you may all find that which you seek.”

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Id always dipped in and out of art all my life. Whenever Ive had a crisis, Ive always come back to art.

Ive done an art foundation course and attended numerous classes and groups for painting portraits and for doing life drawings.

My most recent rejoining to my art happened after Ide had cancer of the oesophogus and had a massive operation for it 9 years ago. One of my lovely friends Liz, that id attended many classes with, got in touch, and said that a guy we knew was setting up life drawing classes at a local church. So we went, we also went to an evening class which was a mixture of portrait and life drawing.

When my friend very sadly passed away I could no longer attend the classes due to my agoraphobia.

Soon after that covid struck and zoom life drawing on line sessions started – which was fabulous for me with my agoraphobia – so I attended these with much enjoyment and started posting may art work online avidly.

From me posting my art work on instagram a woman called Laetitia De Guiche reached out to me and asked me to paint a portrait of her showing her breast cancer scar as she would find it empowering, and this was the start of a totally new direction for me! Ide found my path!!

Being as I am disabled myself, I thought I can apply this to disabled people as well as people with scars.

So now I do series of paintings in which I empower disabled people by painting sensitive portraits of them and ask them to tell their stories in their own words to accompany their portraits – and then share the results to social media. I also include myself in these portraits and tell my stories.

My aim is to empower disabled people by painting sympathetic portraits of us mainly in watercolour.

My method of doing this is by sharing disabled people’s stories in their own words as 1. I don’t think disabled people are listened to enough as it is and 2. There’s nothing better than hearing first hand experiences from people.
The categories I have, are Mens Health, Women’s Health, Gender fluid health, Mental Health and Scars and All

I look for people who will provide me with photographs of themselves in which they appear quirky, pretty. Intelligent, mysterious, whatever suits their personality, and are willing to share their stories about themselves in less than 400 words.

I retain ownership of the painting and share the paintings and stories online across social media and in real life at any ex-hibitions that I am offered.

Paintings that are sold: 10% of the payment I receive for the painting is given to the person who the portrait is of, or, if they wish to buy their portrait, they get a 10% reduction.

I am very proud of what i do as I feel Im helping empower disabled people and helping disabled people be seen in the art world, I received a very moving video from one of the women I had painted (Laura Porter) who thanked me for how special I had made her feel by taking the time to paint such a detailed, lovely portrait of her.

The most important thing to me is that the disabled people I work with feel truly represented and understood in the way they are portrayed and their stories are shared. And that they are portrayed as the people they are and not figures of pity or as what we call “the medical model” which is all about people impairments rather than as themselves. I portray disabled people the way they want to be seen and heard and hopefully what I do helps us move towards a more equitable society.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I overcame a massive obstacle in my business, with fortitude, determination and a massive helping hand from you tube and the fabulous person Tyler Moore, who I had never heard of until I went looking!!

I was informed on a free 5 day business mentorship programme run by the fabulous Paula Telizyn at https://betterthancheese.com/ That in order to run an art business it was essential to have a website. I was a bit put out by this as I had no website and certainly not enough money to pay someone to make one for me!!

I had attempted in the past, to set up websites and shops with Etsy and Wix and not been able to get my head round them.

I decided it might be an idea to look on youtube and see if there was anything on there, as its pretty well known for having the answers to everything. In my searching I found a fantastic video called “How to set up a wordpress website step by step” by Tyler Moore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnjeR-bsRM4&t=7s&ab_channel=TylerMoore ( I think hes got a more up to date version out now)

I watched the video all the way through and took notes before even attempting to start anything as I wanted to check that this was even feasible for me.

After watching the video over a period of 2 to 3 weeks, I then got stuck into building the website.

There were a few hitches along the way, the worst one being not aware that to undo something is a simple ctrl and Z keys can undo it. So I made a mistake and reinstalled the whole basic website from scratch again and had to start rebuilding it!

However – he we are a few months down the line, with an up and running website. Im still working on building the shop and have also had some advice and input from Paula with the last few niggles, like installing paypal, royal mail and a newsletter facility.

To subscribe to my website, which Im very proud of! Please click the link here https://barbarahulmefineartist.com/

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I am a disabled artist on a mission to empower disabled people etc. to achieve representation by painting personal, sensitive portraits of them in watercolour. and help the general public realise that these health issues can happen to anyone through trauma, illness, accident or other reasons. My intention is to influence people to be more empathic and understanding and to give people with disabilities a voice.

In the long run I hope that by achieving representation I can raise disabled people’s profiles and help make the world a more equitable place for all.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://barbarahulmefineartist.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/barbara.hulme/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BarbsJewelleryAndFineArt/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-hulme-104b35264/