‘People Saw Her Diagnosis Before They Saw Her’: How a Mother Built a Platform for Artists With Disabilities

Tickle Your Art is a social enterprise built around the creative work of artists with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities. It turns their original artwork into lifestyle products, books, corporate gifts and other items. Its purpose is to focus on what artists can express and create, rather than on assumptions about what they cannot do.

The enterprise began with Dhriti, Shweta Runwal’s daughter. After Dhriti used a drawing to explain that a friend was moving away, Shweta began exploring art classes and creative work with other children. An exhibition at Kelkar Museum in 2018 helped turn the idea into a larger platform.

Today, Tickle Your Art runs a community centre where artists receive training, mentorship and employment opportunities. It also has an experience centre for visitors. The organisation tries to preserve artists’ original lines, colours and stories instead of forcing their work into a standard style.

Dhriti’s drawing changed how her mother understood her communication. At the time, Dhriti could speak only in single words, so expressing a complicated feeling or event through speech was difficult. Yet her drawing carried a clear message for Shweta.

Dhriti came home with a diary and drew two stick figures. One figure was crying. When Shweta asked what had happened, Dhriti tried to explain that her friend was moving away. The picture gave Shweta a way to understand the feeling behind her daughter’s limited words.

Shweta remembers this as the first time she recognised that Dhriti was deliberately communicating through art. The moment shifted the focus from what Dhriti might not be able to do to what she could express. It encouraged Shweta to seek art classes and explore creative expression with other children.

Tickle Your Art has worked with more than 25 neurodiverse artists. The organisation is also onboarding six more artists for upcoming launches. These figures show that an idea rooted in one family has developed into a growing platform for many artists.

The organisation provides more than a place to display artwork. Its community centre offers training, mentorship and employment opportunities. Artists’ work is also developed into lifestyle products, books, corporate gifts and other items. An experience centre lets visitors encounter both the work and the stories behind it.

This model connects creative practice with practical opportunities. Artists can explore different forms of expression while their original work reaches people through products and exhibitions. The article does not state specific pay figures or employment numbers, but it identifies employment as a central opportunity. The planned onboarding suggests the organisation intends to keep expanding its artist community.

Shweta created Tickle Your Art because she saw a gap in how people viewed children with intellectual disabilities. Conversations often centred on what they might not be able to do. She wanted to begin with their abilities, creative expression and possibilities instead.

Dhriti’s drawing provided the starting point. When her daughter used two stick figures to explain that a friend was moving away, Shweta saw art functioning as communication. She later organised a 2018 exhibition at Kelkar Museum, bringing together artwork by people with Down syndrome and creating products around it. The response encouraged her to develop the idea.

Tickle Your Art was formally registered in October 2020, during the pandemic. It now turns original artwork into lifestyle products, books and corporate gifts. Shweta also wants each product to create “three smiles”: for the artist, the giver and the receiver. The platform therefore combines recognition, expression and wider public access.

When artwork by people with disabilities is connected to training, employment and customers, it can be seen as meaningful creative work rather than dismissed through assumptions. Tickle Your Art creates a route from an artist’s expression to public engagement. It gives the work a place in everyday products, books and corporate gifts.

The mechanism begins with support at the community centre. Artists receive training and mentorship, while the organisation develops products around their original work. It tries not to change the artwork much. Visitors can also encounter the pieces and the stories behind them at the experience centre.

The article presents this as a shared human connection. Shweta says each product should be responsible for “three smiles”: the artist’s, the giver’s and the receiver’s. The model also creates employment opportunities and wider recognition. As more artists join, their work can reach new audiences without losing the stories carried by their lines and colours.

Tickle Your Art differs from programmes that judge artwork against a predetermined standard. It does not begin by asking whether a piece looks like conventional “good” art. Instead, it treats the artist’s original work as valuable communication and creative expression.

Its key mechanism is adaptation around the artwork. Shweta says the organisation tries not to change the work as much as possible because it wants to see the artist’s story. Sometimes designers work with the original lines or colours. At other times, they find a new way to translate the work into a product.

This approach keeps the artist’s contribution visible. The resulting items may become lifestyle products, books or corporate gifts, while visitors can learn about the stories behind them. The organisation’s current work with more than 25 neurodiverse artists shows that this approach is being applied across a growing group, not only to Dhriti.

Down syndrome is a genetic condition associated with a particular pattern of development. Intellectual disability involves significant limitations in intellectual and adaptive functioning. Neurodiversity is the idea that human brains and ways of thinking naturally vary. These are broad definitions; the article focuses on how people respond to such labels.

Shweta says people often saw Dhriti’s diagnosis before they saw her. They asked whether she would walk, talk, have a career or know what her future would be. Her drawing challenged those assumptions by showing that she could communicate a complex experience through art, even when she spoke only in single words.

The article’s wider point is that a diagnosis does not describe everything a person can express, create or become. Tickle Your Art responds by offering creative exploration, mentorship and employment opportunities. Its approach asks society to notice individual abilities and stories instead of treating disability as a complete prediction of someone’s life.