Vanessa Brantley Newton attended both SVA and FIT of New York, where she studied fashion and children’s illustration. An artist swathed in retro chic, she loves all things vintage – especially books and clothes from the 40s through the 60’s – and it shines through in her designs, which run the gamut of fun and whimsical to stylish and sophisticated. She loves to add unique touches to her work, including mixed media accents, collage, and hand lettering.
In her keynote, Vanessa weaved an amazing mosiac that was her life. It began with childhood diagnoses of dyslexia and synesthesia—disorders that caused her to feel shame. She did not speak for years after that. It was a childhood filled with anxiety and depression—pain that followed her into young adulthood.
In high school, however, there was a saving grace—a book that probably saved Vanessa's life. THE SNOWY DAY, by Ezra Jack Keats, was the first book where she saw herself. Peter, the main character in the story, and the multicultural neighborhood in which he lived, validated her existence. No longer did Vanessa feel invisible. But it would be years before she could get up the nerve to pursue her dreams and be her authentic self.
Many years and a few careers later, it was David Catrow, a children's book illustrator who Vanessa admired, gave her some tough-love advice: "Do the damn work," he said. "Do what you need to do for you." With those words, Vanessa was able to parlay a lifetime of heartache and pain into creating the emotion-packed artwork exuded in her work today.
And if the keynote wasn't enough to get us all up in our feels, the soulful song she ended with certainly did.
Encore!
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