Recovery

How 2021 began in central Virginia.

2021 kicked off with a depressing milestone. A year had passed since I’d last had a job.

This was a first for me. I’d been working nonstop since the age of 14. When COVID turned my world upside-down, I had the luxury of taking some time to figure out my next move. I had technically not even started looking. Still, as an American from an immigrant family, I could not think of the anniversary without feeling ashamed.

Until I realized this was how I felt every year. Always, the thought was I hadn’t done enough. Graduated from Stanford? Well, it was a master’s, I didn’t finish the PhD. Landed my dream job at an aquarium? Well, it didn’t pay enough. And so on.

It was a new year. Could I be an even newer person by actually remembering the good things I’d done for a change?

I was skeptical. But when I sat down and really looked back on my “gap year,” I found some pretty good stories. Not only had I set and met ambitious goals for myself, but I had grown leaps and bounds in the process. And I realized this stuff was worth sharing.

This first of three stories is about becoming something new.

I’d started over before. In 2008, I left a successful marketing career to chase my passion for the environment. I remember walking up to a local nature center to interview, high heels sinking in the mud, and emerging with a teaching job - for $10 an hour. Over two years, I built enough experience to get hired by a big nonprofit downtown. It was an entry-level position, and I was 33. Eventually, I moved up—five times in all, and more than doubled my salary. I was one promotion away from Vice President when the pandemic hit. By the end of 2020, the museum had lost $26 million and over 200 staff - including me and my team.

It sounds like a sad story. But let’s be real, this was my last day at work.

It got a bit more grim. The day after I learned our jobs would soon end, the pathologist called. I’d been so focused on getting laid off that I’d almost forgotten the biopsy I’d had the week before. The results were not good. The only way to tell whether or not I had cancer was to remove the lesion in my left breast surgically. I spent my birthday in the oncologist’s office, trying not to think about the fact that on the very same floor, my mother had been treated for the cancer that eventually killed her.

Same floor. Same socks, too. Taken en route to pre-op.

I got lucky. They squeezed me in for surgery before my health insurance ran out. The procedure went well. The drugs were amazing. And I will be forever grateful to Dr. Kevin Bethke at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for calling me at 10 PM, just 38 hours after post-op, to let me know I was cancer-free.

I was deeply thankful. I escaped with just a teeny scar on my chest. The one on my heart, however, was a different story.

I had to recover. Just before the pandemic, I’d received a grant from the Brinson Foundation to take a class at through School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s Adult Continuing Education Program. It was the last thing I remembered enjoying. So I signed up for another. 

Illustration of an iron pour from my first SAIC course in 2020.

Studio: Surface, Space and Time was on Zoom but students could access all the cameras, laser cutters and 3D printers they wanted via the Advanced Output Center on campus. Instructor Stevie Hanley met us downtown on his own time to tour us around, encouraging us to take advantage of all the labs and libraries of the nation’s top art school.

An early assignment from Stevie’s class. “Domestic Balance”, digital illustration.

We learned the rudiments of drawing, painting, molding, casting, video editing and animation. Most importantly, Stevie challenged us to make things we cared about, however strange or imperfect they might be.

Above: “WTF GIF,” made from bits of other famous art.

Below: casting in semi-sweet chocolate, plus ensuing silliness.

“Flow”, 22” x 22” x 39”. This laser cut sculpture was inspired by science. To create the shapes, I used data from research papers describing blood flow during a retinal angiogram (solid, chipboard) and flooding of the Okavango river delta (clear, acrylic). I am fascinated by patterns that show we are governed by the same forces as landscapes.

My creative output for 2021 would eventually total 106 original works of art, including 32 single-panel cartoons and ink drawings, 27 blog posts with digital illustrations and 6 sculptures in a variety of sizes and media.

Once in a while, I started to think of myself as an artist. Mostly, I was just glad that creating things seemed to help me heal.

Telling this story in the forthcoming Annual Report.