After corporate burnout and a workplace injury left her nervous system in ruins, SammyBou’s world unravelled. Finding herself physically wrecked, mentally fried, on the brink of homelessness, and brushed off by the system as 'just anxious', SammyBou turned to art not as a hobby, but as a means of survival. 

Today, with her nervous system (mostly) in check and a renewed sense of direction, SammyBou runs Sketchy Stuff Studios - a creative refuge for antisocial artists like herself living with social anxiety and the pressure to be social. 

SammyBou is studying Visual Arts at TAFE Queensland and steadily building the life she once thought impossible. One slab of clay, one rebellious brushstroke at a time - turns out rock bottom is a great place to lay a studio foundation.

Check out SammyBou's website.

This piece holds the weight of never quite fitting. Too sensitive, too intense, too different. It’s built from slab - rigid & a bit wonky, perfectly imperfect - like me. I used to think I had to change to belong, bending and breaking myself to fit, masking to feel 'normal'. Only recently discovering I'm Autistic, I’m now learning to hold space for the parts of me that never fit the mould. This vessel isn’t just a form; it’s a quiet kind of self-acceptance.