Ragged Ink happened a little by accident.
I've always been creative—drawing and painting have been my constant companions since childhood. Art was genuinely my strongest subject, yet I was discouraged from pursuing it at high school. Instead, I'd sit at the back of Chemistry class sketching away while my teacher quietly accepted defeat. My mind just doesn't work in formulas and equations.
At eighteen, uncertain about everything, I stumbled into nursing. Turns out I'm reasonably good at it. But then life does what it does—work, bills, kids, more work, more bills. The hours I once spent developing my creative skills gradually disappeared into the rhythm of everyday survival.
Last year, our family experienced something life-altering that flipped our world upside down. Those kinds of moments change how you think about living the precious time you have.
It wasn't until I was recovering at home after a hysterectomy that I finally had enforced rest and time to draw. Lying in bed, I started sketching underwater creatures—something I've always been drawn to. The ocean has this incredible pull on me. Fish, sea creatures, the way they move through water, their otherworldly beauty—I could watch ocean documentaries endlessly. I'm convinced I was a mermaid in a past life, because my serotonin skyrockets the moment I'm near the ocean.
So there I was, sketching various sea creatures, when my husband saw them and insisted they were good enough to sell. I was sceptical. I'm my own harshest critic, and I know how brutal it is for artists right now—between AI and the sheer volume of genuinely talented people out there, it's hard not to feel mediocre by comparison. But I started experimenting with Canva and using ChatGPT to refine my lines and tidy up my work without losing my original style. (We've had some heated debates, ChatGPT and I.)
Then it hit me: why not put these fish on t-shirts? What better way to share your art than having it worn on someone's chest and back? And here we are. I've loved every single minute of building Ragged Ink. My serotonin is lifted; my art is out there and while my family continues to go through life altering changes, I have a passion and a hobby which distracts me and keeps me smiling, even when life throws you a few lemons.
I won't be quitting nursing anytime soon—a single t-shirt sale doesn't exactly replace a nursing salary. But that's never been the point for me. This is about getting my art into the world, seeing it worn, and knowing it's connecting with people who love it as much as I do.