Welcome, Mina, to Ocean State Stories! We learned of your work from Motif Magazine, which recently featured you. Let’s start with your background. On your website, you write that you were “born in California and raised in Singapore.” Please fill us in.
I was raised in SoCal between Santa Ynez and Santa Barbara. I had a very idyllic childhood, lots of nature, dirt, beaches, farm animals, and independence. When I was 11 my family moved to Singapore, and I lived there until 2021. That move separated my childhood into two distinct halves. Now when I explain where and how I was raised, I don’t have a very good answer for where I’m from, because I don’t entirely identify with either place. It’s hard to articulate the feeling.
My time in Singapore was really formative. It was surreal to transition from small town life to such a busy and culturally rich city. Acclimating to a new country and culture was challenging and those growing pains drew me to art. It was the main way I stayed in touch with who I am, just spending time alone in my sketchbook, drawing and writing to process the whole experience.
You also write: “Ask her about her baby blanket (her best and longest friend) or her favorite book (as of late, Twigs and Knucklebones by Sarah Lindsay).” OK, we’re asking.
My baby blanket’s name is Blankie (super creative, I know). I have had him since the day I was born. If I showed him to you, you probably wouldn’t recognize that he had ever been a blanket – he looks like a tangled piece of rope now. I used to drag him around like Linus from Peanuts, which was ultimately his downfall…one day my brother was standing on him and I kept on walking, and the center fabric tore from the border, so the border is all I’m left with. He still brings me so much comfort. I think lots of people are ashamed of keeping comfort objects into adulthood, but I like to think that I’m staying in touch with my inner child by accepting Blankie. My parents and friends have watched him shrink over the years, and they’re curious when he will dwindle into nothing…but to me he is eternal, and I’ve outgrown any shame about him.
As for my favorite book, Twigs and Knucklebones is a poetry anthology that my highschool writing teacher gave me. It is one of my most cherished possessions. It’s the first poetry anthology I read cover to cover and it really expanded my understanding of what poetry could be. In my late teens I struggled with crippling death anxiety, and Lindsay’s poetry was an unexpected remedy for it…her poems are deeply anthropological, celebrating the cyclical nature of life, surrender to death, and then rebirth. Some of my favorites in the anthology are “Song of a Spadefoot Toad”, “From the Elephant’s Graveyard”, and “Zucchini Shofar” which you can read here!
You graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2025 with a BFA in Illustration. How did your years at RISD influence your work?
I owe so much to my education, it’s hard to find a way to summarize it succinctly, but if I had to put it in a sentence, RISD taught me to be more daring, intentional, and rigorous. The curriculum pushed me to places I never thought I’d be able to reach, and showed me how much I am capable of. In high school, I became a very closed and fearful person, and the community at RISD opened me up again. I’m so grateful for that, because there’s only so much artwork that can come from the echochamber of your own mind – the best work comes from living a full life, learning from your peers, and trusting in others to embrace the more fragile and ugly parts of you.
You state that your themes include “femininity, gentleness, rage, grief, and the humor to be found in everything.” Can you elaborate?
I have so much to say about each of these themes, so I’ll focus on a few that have felt particularly relevant lately. My senior year of college was the best year of my life, but also the hardest. A litany of difficulties in my personal life was compounded by debilitating chronic back pain, but I was hell-bent on finishing the year strong, so I pushed through. After I graduated, I was ready for a summer of rest and relaxation, but my body had unfortunately reached its limit. I suffered a spinal cord injury. As you can imagine, there was a lot to process. Anger, at life for its unfairness, and at myself for ignoring my body’s cries for help. Profound grief, for my body which had suffered for so long, and for the person I was before my injury who now felt like a stranger.
But there was also absurd and unexpected humor in this experience. You’d imagine with spinal cord injuries that there would be some horrific accident as a catalyst. For me, all it took was a sneeze for two discs to herniate. And then the profound irony and joy to be found in the injury itself: my specific diagnosis was Acute Cauda Equina Syndrome. Cauda equina means horse tail in latin, and the injury is named for the ‘horse tail’ of fine nerve endings extending from your low back to your groin and legs. Horses are my favorite animal of all time. I will not shut up about them. So of course, of all injuries, I’d have the horse tail injury!
This experience was the epitome of my core belief about life; if you can’t laugh, what’s the point. It is tough to navigate personhood and all its inevitable tragedies, but humor is the special ingredient that makes even the worst things tolerable. So much of being a young person is confronting the profound unfairness and tragedy of the world we are born into. I aim to make work that validates that grief and anger while also inviting us to laugh at ourselves and the things that trouble us.
You also write books. Please tell us about them.
My time in RISD’s illustration department slowly drew me to children’s literature and picture books. Through a picture book intensive course called Picture and Word, I had the opportunity to write, revise, format, illustrate, and bind a picture book. I caught the children’s book bug, and I have been following that passion ever since. That first project, titled Kajsa’s Song, is the story of a cowherd in pre-electricity northern Sweden, where polar winter sends the landscape into perpetual night. Kajsa, my main character, is very dear to me. In writing her story, I articulated that core belief I hope to express in everything I make: grief and joy are inextricable!
Coloring pages, posters and stationery are among your design work. Please tell us about these.
I love a good coloring page…I’m so happy that adult coloring books are having their moment again! My own taste in coloring books favors hidden narratives, or easter eggs that you discover with careful attention as you color. I hope to evoke the feeling you’d get flipping through those educational picture books from childhood, with illustrations so rich and complex that you can get lost in their world! As for the posters and stationery, I just adore paper goods. There’s nothing better than finding the perfect piece of stationery or wall decor, and it’s a joy to illustrate them myself and have full creative control.
You write: “When she’s not in studio watercoloring like her life depends on it, you can find her rearranging the furniture in her room (for the hundredth time) or daydreaming about horses.” Let’s hear about this!
Singapore is what started my room rearranging habit – my bedroom was teeny tiny, and extra claustrophobic because we lived on the 20th story and I am terrified of heights, so I started habitually rearranging my room whenever I felt restless. It was a way of seeing my own mundane belongings in a new way. It was incredibly therapeutic. I’ve taken that rearranging habit with me wherever I go. After any troubling experience, a surefire way to improve my mood is to rearrange the furniture. Something about sleeping facing a different wall or getting dressed in a new corner makes me feel like a new person, free of whatever had been bothering me.
Daydreaming about horses is self explanatory…since my injury, they’ve graduated from my favorite animal to full-blown deities in my mind. They’re such special animals! I hope I’m reborn as one in the next life.
Lots of painting, lots of writing, giggles with friends, and a beautiful long-awaited Spring!
Anything we missed?
You can read more of my writing at https://thewormcan.substack.com/
