The moving story of Judith and Joyce Scott will make you believe in twin magic.
Look what love can do.
Twin sisters Judith and Joyce Scott's life story sounds straight out of a movie.
It's a story with everything you'd imagine in an Oscar-winning movie: an idyllic childhood, heart-shattering loss, an emotional reunion followed by triumph, and resounding artistic acclaim. Above all, it's two sisters who loved each other beyond adversity and through everything. And it's 100% true.
Twin sisters Judith (right) and Joyce Scott as infants. All images via Joyce Scott, used with permission.
Joyce and Judith were born in Cincinnati in 1943. Judith had Down syndrome and Joyce did not. The sisters were loving and devoted to each other.
For the first seven years of their lives, they spent most of their days playing in a sandbox made just for the two of them. They slept in the same bed at night.
But their parents grew overwhelmed and desperate. They didn't know how to interact with Judith. Along with Down syndrome, she couldn't speak and had undiagnosed deafness. The medical community at the time knew very little about how to engage children with Down syndrome and recommended institutionalizing her. Her parents gave in.
At age 7, Judith was sent to live in a sanitarium. She remained there for the next 25 years.
During that time, her sister Joyce grew up. But she couldn't shake the memories of her sister.
By the time she was 25, Joyce had graduated from college, moved to California, and started work as a nurse specializing in care for children with developmental disabilities. She befriended the mother of one of her patients, joining her on silent meditation retreats. Five days into a six-day retreat, Joyce had an epiphany.
"I had this feeling that I was there with Judy and that our core was a central core that we shared. It was like someone turning on the light in a dark room. It became clear to me: ‘What on earth is she doing in an institution 2,000 miles away when she could be with us?'" Joyce told an interviewer last year.
Just like that, Joyce's life changed. She assumed guardianship of her sister and brought her home to California. Their family was finally whole again.
As the sisters adapted to their new life, Joyce learned about Creative Growth, an enrichment center for developmentally disabled adults.
Judith and Joyce Scott.
She began taking Judith there five days a week for painting and drawing classes, hoping something would spark her creativity.
For two years, nothing clicked. Then one day, a textile artist came to give a presentation. Judith was transfixed. She picked up two sticks and began slowly, methodically wrapping them in strips of fabric.
That wrapped bundle became her first sculpture. Over the next 18 years, she would create more than 200 more.
Judith's talent was rare and immediately apparent.
Her sculptures defy convention and definition. They're simple and intricate, colorful and muted, commanding and gentle.
The unifying feature of Judith's work is wrapped fabric. Her pieces range in size from tiny handheld sculptures that resemble dolls to huge installation pieces that cannot be moved without help. She wasn't particular about her medium, working with whatever items were around the Creative Growth studio.
Nor was there a particular rhythm to her process. She worked exactly as long as a piece took to finish — whether that was an hour, a day, a week, even a month.
An exhibition of Judith's work at a gallery in Brooklyn, New York.
Judith Scott had almost no interaction with her artworks once she finished them. The exception was when she saw them at her first art show. According to her sister, Judith wandered among the works and, one by one, kissed or hugged them. "There wasn't a dry eye in the house," recalls Joyce.
It didn't take long before people started to notice Judith's talent.
In 1999, Creative Growth held the first showing of Judith's work to coincide with the release of the first book about her. It drew worldwide attention, which meant more admirers and more books for Judith, along with documentaries and news articles.
Judith was both nonverbal and illiterate, with no way to share the inspiration behind her creations. Everything — even the names of the artworks themselves — is up to the viewer's interpretation.
"Judith's sculptures, objects, things are, to my mind, amongst the most important three-dimensional things made in the last century. There is no question or doubt about it."
— Matthew Higgs, former director of exhibitions at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts
Critics have tried to define Judith's art, calling it "outsider art" or "brutalist." But her art stands on its own out of necessity. She told her story through wrapped objects and knotted fabric, rather than words and sentences.
In 2005, one evening after dinner, Judith passed away peacefully in her sister's arms. For the past 11 years, Joyce has continued to tell her story.
In addition to her work helping other artists with disabilities around the world, Joyce has joined exhibitions of Judith's work and written a book about their life together.
Many people credit Joyce with transforming her sister's life, but she disagrees. Judith, she says, was her guardian and caretaker, not the other way around.



A Generation Jones teenager poses in her room.Image via Wikmedia Commons
Which map app is best?
We've become pretty finicky about our map apps in the modern age.

Person says they're more productive and excited when pretending their life is a TV show
"This is the one time that being delusional actually helped me."
Be the main character in your life.
A lot of the time, life can be boring. There's lots of waiting and wondering, and the mundane every-day chores can demotivate you, making you really feel the drudgery of it all. If only life were as interesting as a TV show. Wouldn't that make a big difference? For one person, doing just that changed their attitude and outlook on life for the better.
On Reddit, a poster shared that once they started treating life as if they were on a television show, they started feeling more excited to participate in the everyday and even began accomplishing more. They start each day with an episode title and end the "episode" by going to sleep. They claimed to be more excited each day to "unfold the cliffhanger I had of yesterday's episode," and would look back on their "season" (week) feeling prouder and "cooler" about their life. "This is the one time that being delusional actually helped me."
Many commenters brought up how this reframing of life and other similar tricks worked out for them, too:
“Honestly, same! Sometimes when I’m stuck, I imagine I’m in a movie and the audience is screaming at the screen and I think, what are they yelling at me to do that’s so obvious to them? Helps with indecision or hard decisions.”
“I did this a lot as a kid. It made life feel exciting for sure.”
"Framing your day as an episode is genius because it turns the boring parts into plot development instead of just stuff you have to get through…My show would be a lot of filler episodes where the main character is on the couch with his dog but honestly those are the best episodes of any series anyway.”
“Sometimes, when I need to really lock in at work. I'll put earbuds in, put on some music, and imagine watching myself work like it's a dramatic montage in a movie. I don’t know why but it helps.”
“I started treating cooking like I was hosting a show.”
“I actually love this. It is a clean trick to beat boredom and procrastination. Giving the day a title and a clean ending makes you act like the main character instead of a background extra. I might steal it.”
“I kinda do this, I try to romanticize my life by saying oh I’m just the main character of my movie. I go through the struggles I’m going through only because it's the climax of the movie, and it’ll resolve eventually.”
This isn't the first time someone stumbled upon this type of mind hack. Licensed therapists who spoke to Upworthy weighed in on the mental reframing and discussed its effectiveness.
- YouTube youtube.com
"In many ways, viewing your life as a T.V. show is just a cognitive reframe, which can be helpful when overcoming hurdles," said therapist Jerred England. "On T.V., we expect the main character to face challenges and then overcome them as they reach their goal. In many ways, that's life, too. We don't watch programs where the main character has a victim mentality, is defeated, and then lies around at home for a week. Having a mindset that expects and overcomes challenges can be truly helpful—after all, life hands us plenty of them!"
"Thinking this way can give someone a nudge out of passivity," said narrative therapist Claudia Johnson. "Rather than waiting to feel motivated, they start living 'as if' their choices matter to a bigger arc. That can foster curiosity, openness to new experiences, and tolerance of short-term discomfort."
"It can also provide some psychic distance," Johnson added. "By thinking of your life as a movie during anxious times, rejection or failure feels like part of a plot rather than evidence against your self-worth."
While both therapists said that this reframing can be helpful, it can become harmful if taken too literally.
"Believing you are the main character can lead to performing life instead of being present in it. You start going through life instead of living it by curating experiences that look meaningful on the surface," said Johnson.
"One of the dangers is that you'll start basing your worth on whether you're excited or productive. Real life isn't a movie—it's full of mundane stretches where you're just maintaining the pace," she explained. "These 'everyday' chapters are vital but never make it into the highlight reel."
"I would caution that in T.V., we like to have drama, enemies, and constant challenges. If you find too much of that in your life, you might stay in a bad situation too long," concluded England. "If your friends tell you that your life is a T.V. show, you might consider changing your work or relationships. After all, most of us wouldn't actually like to live in The Truman Show."