Michéllé was born with a cleft palate. A cleft is a split in the upper lip. It could also be a gap in the roof of the mouth (palate). From birth it occurs due to parts of a baby’s face not fully formed together properly during development in the womb.

Michéllé works for the NHS health care support. She also has a huge passion for Numerology and Tarot card reading which she endeavours to pursue full time.

In Michéllé’s earlier journey through life, she struggled with accepting the cleft palate disability. Many years later she still vividly remembers being in a consultation room with surgeons and clinicians who were unsure about what to do with her condition as she needed further surgery on her nose. But it was at that operation where she had decided to just embrace the form her nose took as well as the scarring and move forward with strength and pride in her appearance.

It takes a lot of courage to have an insecurity and be open to allowing someone to capture it in an art form for the world to see. A tremendous honour it was for me to be given that privilege and spend over 900 hours creating my portrait drawing of Michéllé.