Today we’d like to introduce you to Lindsey Jo Scott.
Hi Lindsey, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
I’ve been writing and making art for as long as I can remember. In the second grade, I received a small, silver-glitter journal that had a lock and key and stayed in a place hidden beneath my bed where I swore no one would imagine searching. I filled the journal with musings of life at school and wrote short stories with imaginary characters created from scratch-n-sniff stickers and magazine clippings. I drew pictures of myself when I felt floppy and too tall and designed colorful outfits for my hand-drawn misfit monsters with funny names. The journal was my sacred space, the home inside myself.
Since then, writing, drawing, and storytelling have been constants in my creative practice, a through-line in life, and a stabilizing constant and grounding force through transitions, glorious joys, and hard times. Art is the only thing I’ve ever really known to be true.
In my personal and professional practice, I have been driven by a relentless desire to make meaningful work and to communicate big, optimistic ideas. After many ebbs and flows along the way, I completed my undergraduate study from the University of Akron in 2014 as a Graphic-Design-turned-Art Therapy-turned-Studio-Art major. I realize now that regardless of the medium, I am always trying to communicate meaningful ideas and inspire connection.
Currently, I work as a freelance artist, designer, writer, and speaker. I offer services in graphic design, illustration, mural painting, web design, writing, art direction, public speaking, and teaching. I love to collaborate with clients that echo my values and vision for a more loving and inclusive future and I’m really good at finding creative ways to communicate the stories my clients want to share. I am energized by creative strategy and by helping my clients feel more confident and excited about themselves, about life, and about the work they are doing in the world too. As a teacher and speaker, my focus is on inspiring contemplation, quieting the inner critic, and learning to embrace creative living beyond fear.
In addition to my professional freelance work, I’m also pursuing my MFA as a grad student at the School for Visual Arts in New York City. I’m in the Visual Narrative program because I want to strengthen my story craft and further develop my voice as an artist and storyteller. I believe words and images can be a great source of medicine, a bridge between people, even across time and space. Most of all, I believe that art helps us to be human, that stories hold the key to healing our deepest wounds, and I want to write and make images that speak to our interconnectedness and to the big mysteries and wonders of our time. I want to tell stories that say to others – and to myself – that we are not alone.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
My journey has definitely not been a smooth or straight path. Like all humans, I’ve lived through trauma, grief, heartbreak, and overwhelm. When I first started my undergraduate journey as an art school student, I was on a fast track to a Graphic Design career, believing that this was the path to creative career fulfillment and a silver-glitter journal kind-of dream work life. Instead of the meaning-filled projects that I longed to do, the kind of projects that helped people feel seen and connected to themselves and each other, I found myself working on advertising campaigns and logo design projects and making presentations about the history of the Franklin Gothic font (ok, I actually did find that interesting, but not as a career path). I was burnt out, exhausted, and totally unsure of who I was or what I was really doing anymore.
Truthfully, I’ve had a lot of seasons in my life of feeling unsure and even a little bit lost. As a late-identified Autistic woman living with invisible disabilities and ADHD, I spent most of my life not knowing about my non-typical ways of thinking and being, and as a result, accepted the narrative that I was terribly inadequate, incapable, and unworthy of my dreams. My healing is, of course, still an unfolding journey, but thanks to therapy and understanding more about myself and the nature of growth and change, I now believe that being unsure or a little lost isn’t something to be so afraid of and that my dreams are always leading me to my next level of becoming more and more myself. I know understand that being deep in the process of transformation feels mostly like chaos, and I can trust my dreams to lead the way. My life experiences have been my best teachers.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a multidisciplinary artist, designer, writer, and speaker. I offer a variety of services, but the through-line of my work is all about clearly communicating meaningful ideas through thoughtful writing, creative strategy, and professional design. Visually, I am known for my bold, optimistic style that includes bright, saturated color, joyful geometrics, and nature-inspired motifs. I love to play with combining upbeat images with more melancholic writing in my personal work because I believe life is always about the “both/and,” about the bitter and the sweet.
In my freelance work, I am known for my expert design experience, my strategic brain, and my unrelenting commitment to excellence. Because of my neurodivergent brain, I’m really great at pattern recognition and can consume and synthesize information very quickly. In my professional life, this super skill serves my clients well because it means I am able to help connect the dots in order to offer clarity about messaging that I then translate into clear web design, graphic design, writing, and creative direction. I really love when I can help my clients see themselves more fully and feel more energized in their work too.
Finally, I’m very observant, a skill that I’ve developed in order to survive social settings as an Autistic woman, and this makes me highly skilled in empathy. I’m really proud of and grateful for my ability to truly see people authentically, and I hope to always use this skill to help other people feel seen and supported.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I think people would be surprised to learn that I never really feel quite settled with my work and that I’m not always joyful. What I mean is, I struggle with feelings of inadequacy and I often wonder whether or not what I’m doing is good, important, or meaningful. I think because I can appear quite gregarious, optimistic, and confident on the outside, I think people are surprised when I express feelings of self-doubt, depression, and despair. Some people might think I’m this happy-go-lucky Pollyanna when in reality, I can easily slip into a spirit of nihilism and deep grief.
Really, I think none of us are immune to these feelings, and I don’t believe any level of success will make these feelings go away. I also believe hope is a discipline, and I am intentional about cultivating a spirit of duality, wherein I remember and accept that two things can be true at once, that darkness and light are always co-existing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.lindseyjoscott.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lindseyjoscott
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/lindseyjoart
- Other: www.lindseyjoscottdesign.com
