Hi! My name is Grace and I usually work as a Costume Maker for theatre, film and TV. I had just finished working on The Crown season 4 when Covid hit and all future work was cancelled/postponed. After a stint making scrubs for the NHS, I launched @serotoninseries, something I have been working on during lockdown.
Serotonin Series is a project trying to find some humour and joy in mental illness, born out of my own experiences with it. How do you do that you ask? Starting with the odd fact that I’m not allowed to eat or drink anything grapefruit related whilst taking my ‘happy pills’ (sertraline). I decided to explore this through art by combining what I can’t in real life: grapefruits and the thing my medication increases: serotonin! This is what inspired my first collection, producing pin badges, stickers and postcards (oh and face masks of course!).
I quickly moved onto my next range - the ‘Sharon the Magpie’ collection. Me and my sister joke that my mum (Sharon) who died of lung cancer in 2018, has come back as a magpie because we always see just one by itself, particularly around my nephew. Sounds strange I know but it makes me happy whenever I see one - hence the magpie holding the serotonin like a shiny object! You can find out more about this range on my insta/ Etsy shop and 10% from each sale of items in this range is donated to the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation.
My latest range is more of a visualisation of the medication side of mental health and is meant to be a fun, colourful take on an otherwise monotonous and somewhat tabooed issue. Just in time for Christmas, there is a whole range of items, including advent calendars, xmas cards and decorations (plus non Christmassy items like pill/card wallets and coasters!) Profits from my Christmas Card sales will be donated to CALM.
I hope you like what you see and please feel free to contact me if you’ve got any questions or need someone to talk to - reach me @serotoninseries, serotoninseries@gmail.com or www.Etsy.com/uk/shop/SerotoninSeries