ESA student recruits autistic brother to design awareness-raising shirts
Natasha and Joshua Evangelista team up for Art-Toons startup

Toronto.com
March 26, 2018
Cynthia Reason

When Natasha Evangelista first began brainstorming business ideas for her entrepreneurship class at Etobicoke School of the Arts, she knew she wanted her startup to bring awareness to autism.

So, when the 17-year-old music theatre major decided to launch a T-shirt business, she knew just which budding cartoonist to enlist to create the colourful characters that now adorn the line — her little brother, Joshua.

“Joshua was diagnosed with autism when he was just three years old and I was still four. Because we’re so close in age, it’s affected me my whole life,” Natasha told the Etobicoke Guardian last week during an interview at her family’s Woodbridge home.

“I used to treat him like I was another mother, because I knew he needed extra help and I wanted to protect him and support him. So, I always knew as I got older that I wanted to do something to support autism awareness, and this was my chance to do that.”

The result of those efforts was Art-Toons T-shirts, whose “Designs for a Cause” slogan reflects Natasha’s goal to raise awareness — and funds — for the cause that has had the biggest impact on her family life.

For Joshua, teaming up with his sister on the project gave him the chance to both hone his artistic skills and to showcase his talent to a wider audience.

“I like drawing, because it’s so peaceful, so quiet. It’s calming for me,” said Joshua, 15, who attends Bright Start Academy in North York.

“I always liked to draw cartoon characters from TV shows and movies before, but now I’ve started to draw my own characters.”

Those characters include Al Lazy Gator the alligator, the Happy Dais daisy, and a very cool cucumber — all of whom are featured on T-shirts available on Instagram @arttoons_ and are now also included in Natasha’s new digital children’s book, Wormie and the Show N’ Tell Day Surprise.

While Art-Toons began as a class project, it evolved into a full-time job last summer after Natasha successfully pitched the startup to Vaughan Summer Company — a municipally run program that gives students the opportunity to run their own summer business with access to up to $3,000 in provincial funding.

Through the program, which matched Natasha with mentor Lindsay Davidson, the Evangelista siblings were able to take their T-shirt line and autism awareness message out on the road — setting up booths at various summer festivals, including Vaughan Ribfest and the Art Beat in Woodbridge.

The best part of the whole Art-Toons experience for Natasha and Joshua’s parents Anthony and Claudine was seeing their kids shine — both individually and as a team.

“Most of what Joshua does, he has to work quite hard to accomplish, but drawing seems to come really naturally to him, so it was a great opportunity for him to gain confidence,” said Anthony, who was also taken aback by his son’s natural ability to sell his T-shirts on last summer’s festival circuit.

“He’s a born salesman, while my daughter — even though she’s very smart and bright, and can speak well — had to build up that confidence and that sales pitch. So, they learned a lot from each other and it was a great experience for us all. We’re really proud of them for teaming up.”

Added Claudine: “It was so nice to see Natasha taking up the cause, raising autism awareness and helping build on Joshua’s talents.”

For Natasha — who’s still running the business as a side project, while also juggling her senior year studies with a part-time job — Art-Toons was always more about awareness than making money.

“It gave us the opportunity to show people that Joshua is more than just a label,” said Natasha, who hopes to study at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management next year.

“A lot of the time when I tell people my brother has autism, they assume he can’t do anything — but he can do so much.”

A portion of proceeds are donated to autism-related charities.