WHY Is Your Signature Backwards?

I get this question a lot, so let me explain…

Here’s the “why” behind the mirror-writing in my work…

I remember being so broke as an art student that I couldn’t afford to buy art books. Instead, I used to sit for hours on the floor in Barnes and Noble, flipping through books on art history, technique, materials and ArtNews articles. (also why I was so excited when my own book showed up on B&N shelves!)

…I know this is what why they make libraries, but the art book selection in libraries is never as current or fantastic as in the bookstores!

Sitting on that green-carpeted floor, beneath wooden shelves and ladders, is where I first came across a book on Leonardo da Vinci’s journals. Everyone knows Leonardo as an artist and many know of his inventions, but it was his notebooks that I simply fell deeply in love with.
It is estimated that da Vinci produced between 20,000 to 28,000 pages of notes and sketches spanning across 50 different notebooks about work related to whatever topics that interested him – painting, engineering, philosophy, warfare, engineering, physiology, landscape, proportion, perspective, geography, geology, light and shade, inventions and various other topics.
“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.”
– Leonardo da Vinci

Amongst the sketches are his mirror-written words. There is still mystery behind his “why”. Many say he wrote backward to keep his studies secret or to make sure his painting hand was kept clean from ink. Either way, I was completely fascinated by it and started to wonder how hard it would be to write in reverse… so that my 8 siblings wouldn’t be able to read my own journals.

For several months, while I was working at the register of an art supply store, I practiced mastering my backward letters and words. Finally, it became so natural to write in reverse that I had to think about what way was correct before writing someone a note (to be sure they could actually read it!). I wrote all of my journals in mirror-writing and started signing my paintings with a backward signature. I even challenged myself to learn to write backward with my left hand so as to not smudge my words.

Then in my early 20’s, as I traveled from state to state for The Nomadic Project, I spontaneously added a page of my journal to one of my canvases (see and read about that painting here). That began the start of incorporating streams of consciousness, poetry, song lyrics and quotes in my art through mirror-writing, which I’ve continued to do for over a decade now.

We may never know Leonardo da Vinci’s true “why” for his own backward writing but anywhere you see writing in my paintings, you’ll understand “my why”.Watch the quick video of me mirror-writing and explore some of the art that includes my mirror-writing in it.