Carla Duffey, with a marker in hand, is becoming a growing presence at North Island College meetings and events as a graphic recorder.
A few years ago, the former student had never even heard of graphic recording, but she is now making a name for herself with clients like NIC, creating a visual record of proceedings such as field school debriefings, the Indigenous Speaker Series, and other Indigenous Education events.
Sometimes called “visual notetaking,” graphic recording is a process of translating people’s words into drawings created in real-time. These images are usually accompanied by words, too. The process helps participants remember the discussions and stories from meetings and can also make the sessions more fun and engaging.
Always interested in the arts, Duffey had taken courses at another college for two years before moving back home to Quadra Island and doing a third year at North Island College in 2000-2001.
“I’ve always liked drawing, I’ve always been creative,” she said.
Duffey had gotten into photography while in college, starting with wildlife as her subject, then moved on to portraits to set up her business, Lime Soda Photography. When the pandemic hit, though, the portrait business slowed, and in 2022, she heard about graphic recording from a poster she saw online about an upcoming class. She knew nothing but started researching it. She applied out of curiosity and was accepted into trainer Sam Bradd’s class starting that fall.
“You really have to draw something good,” she said. “I’d kind of gotten out of drawing for so long because of my photography.”
After finishing in the spring of 2023, she started thinking of her new talent in addition to her photography. It took a year or so as she started to do more graphic recording and make a name for herself.
“The last year, I felt I have a lot more confidence,” she said.
In some ways, the process was natural. In addition to her early arts interest, her youngest son loved to draw with pens and markers, so she often joined in.
“I would just doodle along,” she said.
A lot of her NIC work has been with the Office of Global Engagement (OGE), which coordinates international education both for visiting international students and for domestic students studying in other countries. Examples include student and faculty stories from the Indigenous Language Revitalization in Hawaii and Early Childhood Education field schools in New Zealand, as well as the Japan field school focused on Indigeneity and early migration from the country.
“Beyond her exceptional work with students and faculty regarding their international experiences, Carla worked with our OGE team in 2024 to create a graphic expression of the work we are doing,” said Mark Herringer, Executive Director, International Education, Office of Global Engagement.
A focal point at a retreat last year was to continue finding new storytelling ideas for International Education at NIC, which is working together with the Office of Indigenous Education through NIC’s Journeying Together Indigenizing international education plan.
“A key result of that retreat was how central storytelling needs to be to express the impacts of the work that we do in OGE, and Carla has been a great asset to help us begin to explore the stories we are now a part of,” Herringer said.
In addition to her NIC work, Duffy, who is a Mamalilikulla First Nation member, has other clients, particularly ones wanting to work with someone who brings an Indigenous perspective. She has worked a lot with organizations like the Centre for Indigenous Environmental Resources (CIER) that focus on species at risk. Sometimes, she sits in for online meetings that are far away, such as one project in Eastern Canada working on eastern wolf recovery, but she is always happily surprised when she gets calls for work close to home.
At one time, she never thought she would work locally, but she is now confident about more opportunities, both through her growing connections and the increasing interest in graphic recording.
“Here, it’s catching on. In Europe, it’s really popular, and in the States too,” she said.
