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Finding My Voice - By Thais Bolton
Hello to everyone who found their way here.
My name is Thais Bolton. I am an illustrator and an aspiring writer. I am Brazilian and live in Florida with my husband, Skylar.
I never imagined I would have a blog. My presence on social media has always been quite limited to my illustration work.
I started this blog for a few reasons. The main one is in the title of my first post: Finding My Voice.
It’s an interesting title — at least to me.
Between the ages of six and eleven, I had no friends at school. Not because I didn’t want them, but because I didn’t know how to speak. When a kinder child — or perhaps one more obedient to the principal — was encouraged to try to befriend me, they would come over during recess. The child would leave frustrated, unable to hear my timid, low voice, and I would feel even more frustrated for not being able to communicate.
Those were years of suffering. Going to school was synonymous with torture. Every day, as I passed through the gate of that dreaded place, I felt as though I were entering the labyrinth of the Minotaur — completely lost, with a beast always on the verge of attacking me. I lost count of how many medical exams I underwent because of daily, intense headaches. No diagnosis was ever found.
At home, I was a “normal” child. I spoke the way a child my age was expected to speak.
Drawing was always my greatest hobby. Perhaps the isolation I lived with at school was fertile ground for creativity.
My notebooks were always filled with drawings. Still, I said I wanted to be a pediatrician. I repeated it with conviction: “When I grow up, I’m going to be a doctor.” My aunt always said I would become an illustrator. I thought that was nonsense. Drawing was just a hobby.
My school life was as disastrous as my ability to make friends. At some point, I had to give up the idea of becoming a doctor — which, looking back, seems like a very sensible decision for someone who nearly faints at the sight of blood.
As a teenager, I felt that the line “I’m the worst at what I do best,” from “Smells Like Teen Spirit” by Nirvana, described me perfectly. It’s easy to see that my self-esteem wasn’t very high.
My mother had serious concerns about what I would become in life. I wasn’t all that worried. I kept drawing and playing guitar.
By a stroke of luck, I ended up studying graphic design. I worked at good agencies. I loved the glamour of living in São Paulo, the largest city in Brazil, and having a “cool” job. I loved working overtime. I felt proud whenever I found, at the grocery store, a package I had designed. It worked as a form of personal validation.
I enjoyed that design life so much that I forgot how to draw. Drawing stopped being my hobby. In fact, I think I no longer had any hobbies at all. I was too busy for that.
I can’t help but think of our beloved aviator — the one who was once captivated by a Little Prince. The one who, as a boy, drew a boa constrictor that had swallowed an elephant and was discouraged by adults, was advised to set drawing aside and devote himself to geography, history, or mathematics. Thus ended a promising career as a painter.
The adult who discouraged me was myself.
And so my drawings fell asleep in time, tucked away in an old folder from my childhood and teenage years. Time passed, and I met a great illustrator: Tiago Hoisel. By sheer luck, he became not only a great inspiration but also a dear friend, a brother, and my wedding godfather.
I met Tiago through my sister at heart, Rachel, who married him. When I saw Tiago’s work, something changed. I was deeply inspired, and suddenly I remembered that old hobby I loved so much.
I began drawing again, with no intention whatsoever of becoming a professional illustrator. After all, to be one, I would have to be at least as good as my inspiration. And how could I ever be as good as Tiago?
In a way, I was staying true to my childhood words: it was just a hobby. Meanwhile, I kept designing packaging.
But something inside me had already changed. I no longer found joy in seeing my packages on store shelves. I found even less joy in going to the agency and working overtime. My life seemed settled, and yet, all of a sudden, there was an emptiness inside me.
Had I found a problem?
Or a solution?
Once again, by a twist of fate, I went to the United States and landed an interview at one of the best design agencies in San Francisco. The generous art director, Paul Bennett, welcomed me to review my portfolio.
It’s very likely that he doesn’t remember me. But his existence is essential to my story.
It was 2018. My portfolio was filled with packaging and graphic design projects. At the end, timidly, I included my recent drawings — the ones inspired by Tiago’s work. Deep down, I think I still hoped my aunt had been right all along. That someone would see my drawings. That someone would like them. That maybe I could be an illustrator.
Paul reviewed my portfolio with care and attention. Then he asked if I would like to hear some advice.
Such kindness. How could I say no?
His advice felt like those invitations from childhood — from the children who wanted to be my friends at school. It was everything I wanted, but couldn’t accept. It was an invitation to speak, to express myself. To find my voice.
He praised my work as a designer, but said my true strength was in the final section of my portfolio. Yes. My drawings.
“You need to work with this.”
Those were his words.
And in that moment, the phrase “I’m the worst at what I do best” echoed inside me once again.
There is a popular saying that comparison is the thief of joy. It’s likely that this thief had been haunting me since my school days. But it was in my attempt to work with drawing that it became most present.
All the joy I once felt in drawing as a child — or in drawing without expectations — began to fade the moment I decided to become a professional illustrator.
That arduous path began in 2015, when I returned from the United States and told Tiago that Paul had said I should work with illustration. Tiago replied that it might be possible, but that I would have to study a lot — and he emphasized the word a lot.
And so I did. Perhaps not in the best way. I ignored some advice and skipped important steps in the process of learning how to draw — steps I won’t go into here, but which I certainly wouldn’t recommend to anyone who is beginning to learn.
During that period, something curious was happening inside me. Two extremes were operating at the same time, preventing any balance. On one side, that old phrase by Kurt Cobain was ever-present, and I believed I was the worst draftsman imaginable. On the other, I believed I was already ready, that there wasn’t much more to learn about drawing. All that was missing was for someone at Walt Disney Studios to discover me — and surely I would be hired.
It was with that thought that, in 2018, I moved to the United States to pursue a master’s degree in Visual Development.
I loved the glamour of living in San Francisco, California, and studying art. I crossed the city on my scooter, believing I was living the best moment of my life. Success, I thought, was waiting for me around the corner. But inside — deep down, in that hidden place — the thief of joy continued to consume me.
My mother can tell you how many phone calls she received from her daughter crying, often from the university bathroom, wanting to quit because she “didn’t know how to draw.” On the first day of a certain oil painting class, the professor asked me to leave the room. He said that just by watching me try to draw a circle, he already knew I didn’t know how to draw — let alone paint in oils. The only perfect grade I received during my master’s program was in learning just how much I still had to learn.
I survived the master’s program. I didn’t get the internship I wanted, and I lost count of how many “no’s” I received from animation studios.
But I also received a few “yeses.” Since then, I have been working with drawing. Later on, I even achieved that dream of working for Disney. But by then, I was already beginning to realize something important: I didn’t need validation to exist. And that job I had dreamed of for so long turned out to be just a job. With all due respect and admiration for the life and legacy of Mr. Walt Disney, drawing Elsa or Mickey did not fill the emptiness I felt inside.
My brother said I should see a psychologist when I told him I was going to quit. I hope he knows that it was an internal decision of life or death — an essential part of my search for my voice.
In 2024, after a great deal of effort, I finally received a “yes” I had been searching for for a long time. My dear literary agents, Ethan and Heather Long, believed in my work. Since then, Ethan has been guiding and shaping me so that I can become the best version of myself. Recently, on a phone call, he told me something that is the reason I am writing here.
He said that I have strong elements to reach where I want to go with my work — but that something essential was still missing: my voice.
These were his words to me:
“Experiment. Explore. Break your patterns. Play until you discover something that feels riskier, bolder — maybe even a little dangerous.”
I read these words every day.
I take the homework he gives me very seriously. To break patterns, one must first recognize them. Patterns not only in drawing itself, but also those that live internally — in that hidden place that still slyly seeks old validations and continues to be haunted by the thief of joy.
In the midst of this search for my voice, my friend João Arleo recommended the book Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon. That is another reason I am writing here. Among the many good ideas the book presents, there is a list of things to do. One of the items on the list I wasn’t doing yet was having a blog. I found the advice worthwhile — and decided to follow it.
Here I am, trying to reclaim the voice I once lost in childhood. There is hope, because in the depths of the heart — where the most hidden things reside — there also dwells the mystery of renewal. May God allow me to rediscover joy, with a free and unburdened heart. And may my words always be crowned with a garland of grace.
To be continued…
(How literature saved my life)
Until the next post.
