Roz Maclean is a wonderful artist who hails from the Comox Valley. She has turned her passion and vision into a successful line of children's books that teach inclusion and diversity. www.rozmaclean.com 

TRANSCRIPT

Evan:

welcome back to DDA encouraging abilities podcast. I'm your host. DDA communications manager Evan Kelly, today, we're talking with Roz McLean now Roz is a local award winning author of children's books that deal a lot with diversity, communications, emotions and inclusion, which, of course, is right up Didier's alley. Roz is also a visual artist and illustrator and an educator in the Comox Valley here in British Columbia. She likes to investigate ideas of human nature, diversity, relationships, community, mental health, interconnection and the natural world through an anti oppressive and LGBTQ and inclusive feminist lens. They've written a couple of books illustrated even more, in addition to having a portfolio of artwork that covers abstract ink drawings animals, one set of works called insufficient arts art, rather which focuses on British Columbians with disabilities. That and more can be found at Roz mclean.com and I'll say this a couple of times, it's Roz with NAC mclean.com

Roz. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Roz:

Yeah, thanks so much for having me now.

Evan:

I always begin my podcast with you know, people I've never met before. So tell me a little bit about a little bit about yourself?

Roz:

Well, yeah, I'm a children's book author, illustrator, and I'm on Vancouver Island in the Comox Valley on the traditional territories of the Comox people. I have a dog. I live here with my husband.

I like to go in the forest, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's, it's funny to try to sum yourself up.

Evan:

I mean, you, you obviously do a lot of art. Art is your is that you're like, the number one passion in your life.

Roz:

Ah, I think, I mean, it's definitely been a common thread throughout my life, and it's funny, I guess when your passion becomes like your job, because it is my passion, and now it's also my job. So it doesn't always feel so passionate, but it's been a really common, consistent, yeah, thing in my life that I've always turned to and enjoyed doing is that something you studied in the past,

I'm really lucky that I grew up in a really, like, arts and rich environment with my family. My parents are both artists, and my mom worked at like, arts umbrella when I was growing up, so do have classes there. And I grew up in North van as well, and they had, like, lots of enrichment stuff going on in their school district. And then I also went to Emily Carr and SFU for a little bit. I didn't finish up degrees there, but I was there for a little while. And then, yeah, and then I'll just take classes, like, here and there. It took, like, infection course one time. So I'm always learning, yeah, and because, it's because

Evan:

I look at your art on your your portfolio on Instagram and stuff like that. And it's, it's, it's, you run a lot of different styles, and it seems like quite a bit of different mediums. I just love your your ballpoint pen work. It's really, really detailed and very realistic. So you've got some obviously, influence from all over the place, and not just one particular, particular medium or style.

Roz:

Yeah, yeah. All over the place is a really great way to describe it. That's how I feel a lot of the time. I'm very much like, Oh, what about this? They're like, Ah, I could do that. And it's very like, kind of counterbalancy, like, I'll work on something really detailed for a while, then I'll be like, Oh man, I really need to, like, feel like I want to do something more loose and abstract. So yeah, all over the place is a great, great way.

Evan:

You mentioned your your work. It's your passion has become your work. So is this a full time thing for you?

Roz:

Whether books, yep, yep, I'm author, illustrating is what I'm up to these days, which is amazing. I don't know. Not many people can say that that's that's quite an accomplishment. Yeah, I feel really lucky, very grateful.

Evan:

So what inspires you?

Roz:

Definitely, like life experience. And I think, like, I have a lot of big feelings about like the world.

Evan:

I mean, the election just happened in the US. I don't know when this podcast will be coming out, but it happened, like, a couple days ago and like, so you know that it brings up all these big ceilings, and it

can be really hard to know what to do with all of that, and to feel very

Roz:

Yeah, to for me, I can get kind of like, stuck. And and so art isa place to kind of put that energy and all those feelings and kind of the dreams that I have, and I know many people have, for like, hey, things could be different and better. So I think I'm really inspired by by envisioning just better possibilities.

And I'm also really inspired just by like ideas of connection, like connection to nature, like I am, where I am right now. There's like, tons of forests and ocean and wildlife and everything, which feels really great, but yeah, nature is also always been something that I found really inspiring and awe inspiring,

yeah, and I've inspired also by other artists. Like, it's, it's just really cool to see what people do. And it's always, yeah, I'm, I'm often blown away by other artists too, and it's very invigorating.

Evan:

Yeah, we're, we actually run a very robust art program through DDA for for a lot of our adult clients, and I'm just, they just took part in possibilities. Now, possibilities is another organization here on the lower mainland, and they do an annual art show and sale every year inclusion. They call the inclusion art show and sale and, yeah, stuff our clients come up with, and other people with disabilities, and specifically for the disability community, the stuff they come up with just absolutely mind blowing. And it's, and it's, obviously, it's very affordable art, and it's, you know, I would always encourage people to come to DDA website. We've got a lot of our artists showcase there as well.

Roz:

So that's really cool. Yeah, absolutely. Now your books deal a lot with inclusion and diversity. Why is this so important to you?

Roz:

Um, I think the idea of inclusion and, yeah, diversity, they've been a really, like, core care throughout my life, and, like, my family's life. My older brother has an intellectual disability and and Yeah, and so we him, and I went to school in like, the 90s, and inclusion was like a very new idea. And so I really watched my brother and my family, like navigate that and do a lot of advocacy work, and yeah, to just see the bumps that would come up and the limits and the barriers that were in the way to inclusion and acceptance and to just kind of come up against all these, like old ideas. So that was just something I think that's like very core to, like, all of my memories.

And then I also ended up working in schools as a special education assistant and intervener. And intervener is someone who works with students, students and individuals who are deaf, blind and and yeah. And that was another area where I just got to see, like, all the possibilities that I encountered with the students I was working with,

yeah. Yeah. And then also, kind of, like, what structures are in the way in those school experiences that I came across. So I think that, like throughout all of that, and throughout just like what I've been like, you know, reading and learning and everything I just, I have this, like, very core belief that, like, every person has value and and diversity is very valuable. And these kind of, like norms of,of like abledness And like, just expecting people to be one way that's like, this super productive way, like, it's just, it's not good for anybody. But also, you know, I see how many people get left behind andand aren't cared for under that scenario. So, yeah, it's just like, it's in my heart. So I just, I feel it and I think about it.

Evan:

Well, that's great. So what is the inspiration? You know, we'll get right into your books here. Like, what is the the inspiration behind more than words, that's, that's, that's more of your newest, newest one, isn't it?

Roz:

Yeah, yeah, that's the most recently released book I have. And so the full title is more than words, so many ways to see what we mean. And the inspiration for that really came from working in school. I worked in vancouver public schools for 11 years. And yeah, like I said, So supporting students with disabilities and who are deaf, blind and so communication was, like a very recurring theme like that was especially students who are deafblind. Part of that role was figuring out communication systems that were like, especially for how those kids were interacting with the world, andyeah, and then so. And then the other part of that was like, communicating with the rest of the class and the rest of the school and the rest of the staff about, like, okay, like, this is how the students communicate.

And so there are the specifics of that that are unique to whoever is, you know, using alternative communication. But then there are also those, like, general conversations. It's like, yeah, like, we don't just talk by talking. We we communicate in all these different ways, and that's really normal, like we all do that. And it's also, you know, normal and common for there to be people who don't communicate through talking.

And then part of it too was Yeah, so I really wanted to normalize that, and then I really wanted to provide something for educators