*My Waco, gouache and aquatint on paper, gifted to John Shue, who was the original owner of this airplane. 2017.*

Courage is not being fearless, it’s being able to face your fears.

Hello friends,

Today I feel like story-telling, and I want to share a personal story. This may not seem related to art and the creative process, but I think it is, and I’ll explain.

What got me started in my aviation journey was a fear of flying. Since I can remember, I always had a deep anxiety about flying. When I was a kid, I had bad motion-sickness, and got sick all the time when my family took trips to Europe, in the plane and on car rides. Later, when I went to Stanford University in California, for every flight to school from my home on the east coast, I literally had to ride out a white-knuckled, prolonged, and extremely unpleasant panic attack. When I finally got a fake ID (I was not 21 yet) I would order a drink the minute I was able, which only dampened the fear, but it was better than the alternative.

Fast-forward to 2007: I was on summer vacation with my kids, visiting my family on Martha’s Vineyard. I was feeling torn apart over a recent break-up, and one day at the beach, my sister and I decided to do something completely out of the ordinary, and scheduled a biplane ride. We lived a mile from the small grass strip called Katama Airpark, where we had watched the biplanes taking off and landing since we were kids. Unfortunately, she had to leave the island before our ride happened, so I went alone.

I showed up early at Katama, which looked like an airport straight out of the 1940’s, with it’s old dilapidated wooden hangar and the tattered windsocks flagging out over the grassy runways. That day, I was there to conquer my fear of flying, and I nervously waited for the pilot to land with his passengers, so I could trade places with them. I remember feeling a bit out-of-body, as I watched him do loops, rolls and spins over South beach, which was only a few blocks from the airport. Was I really about to do this?! And then the Waco landed gently on the grass, and taxied over to disembark the two teenage boys, who looked sweaty and a little pale. It was then that the smell of vomit reached my nostrils, and I realized that one of them had gotten sick in the plane!

A college-aged girl made quick work of swapping out the helmet-headset, and cleaning the seat with towels and disinfectant cleaner. But when I got in, and she strapped my lap belt on, the awful smell was still there. Oh no, I thought… what if I get sick too? But I was distracted by the pilot approaching: he was tall and lean, tanned, wore sunglasses and had a cute grin, where one side of his mouth curved up higher than the other. He introduced himself as Mike, made some casual joke about the wind taking care of the vomit smell, and hopped nonchalantly into the back seat. He had an easygoing manner, and was obviously very confident, and started the engine up quickly. He was right: as soon as the engine started, the wind came blasting back from the propeller, and I forgot about the vomit-smell. I couldn’t believe I was going flying in this antique airplane, which was much bigger than I expected. I was somewhat nauseous with nervousness, and my heart was pounding. I felt like I was sitting way up high over the runway, and Mike wasted no time, taxing straight to the end of the runway while he made small talk through the headset in my ears.

*Love at first flight (my first ride), 2007*

Before I knew it, we were accelerating down the runway, and that beautiful biplane lifted right off the ground as if it couldn’t wait to fly. I looked down over the edge of the open cockpit, blasted by wind, and saw we were already flying out over South Beach, the sunbathers looking like little ant-people. The smell of the exhaust, the deep, throaty sound of the radial engine, the coolness of the sea air, and the majesty of seeing the island from the air— for the first time ever—made me feel ecstatic. My fear was diminishing, and taking its place was a feeling of intense exhilaration…I was flying! And this guy, Mike-in-my-ears, was putting me at ease with his questions and jokes. The sun was setting to the west and the island was bathed in an orange glow that made it stunningly beautiful. Mike flew out over the ocean and asked me if I saw the skate in the water below.

I couldn’t see it, so Mike dropped the left wingtip and pointed it at the skate, pulling a tight circle around it. I saw the skate, which was pretty cool—but what really got my attention was the feeling of the G-forces pushing me down into my seat. It felt like a roller coaster ride, and I loved those. I must have exclaimed something joyous, because then Mike asked me if I wanted to have a little fun. I think I said “maybe…” and the next thing I knew, he told me I only had two jobs: 1) hang onto my camera, and 2) keep my eyes open. I agreed, clueless about what was coming, and down he dove towards the water, the wind whistling in the flywires that ran between the two wings. Then he pulled back on the stick, threw the nose up in the air, and started a slow barrel roll to the left. The ocean went sideways in my field of vision, then it was suddenly up above me where the sky should have been, and I was hanging by that seatbelt over my thighs, stunned by the view of the ocean where the sky should be. Then the blue water came back around the other side, and we were diving down towards it again. This time Mike pulled the airplane into a loop, and I looked over the left wing, only to see the horizon turning around the wingtip in a mind boggling, dizzying way. The combination of the spectacular visuals and thrill of the G-forces was out of this world to me.

Mike checked in through my ears after the loop, to see how I was doing. I think I croaked something like “great, but what was that?!” and he laughed and explained the figures. We didn’t do any more aerobatics—I think he could sense my limits, plus I had told him about my fear of flying-- but we flew over my house in Edgartown and circled it a few times, and then came back to land as the sun was touching the horizon. Mike pulled the white Waco up to the fuel pumps, got out and climbed up onto the nose, his legs at my eye level as he filled the tanks in the wings over my head. He handed the fuel pump off to the college student, and like a true gentleman, he gave me his hand and helped me out of the plane.

I was ecstatic: so thrilled and SO euphoric, I couldn’t stop talking about the flight. I was also shaking from head to toe. Upon request the girl snapped a few photos with my camera, and I hugged Mike and thanked him. And then, I’m pretty sure I told him I wanted to learn how to do that someday. If I didn’t say it out loud, I said it to myself in the car on the way home, my knees still knocking. I couldn’t wait to tell my kids! It was in that moment that I decided to become an aerobatic pilot!

The next day we were on the ferry home, but I couldn’t stop looking for the biplane in the sky. That week, once home, I called my local airport and scheduled my first flying lesson with a guy named Pat, who became my flight instructor, and eventually my husband.

My story doesn’t end there, of course. In 2010, a year after we were married, Pat was killed in a devastating plane crash. The experience of losing my partner and my best-friend shattered me, and it took me many years to recover, and heal the deep wounds from that tragedy. Pat was an amazing guy who deserves an entire book dedicated to him (which I plan to write), but for now I’ll just say that he radically changed my life for the better in the short time that we were together. Nine years after Pat’s death, which felt like a lifetime, I was back at Katama where the journey began. But this time, I was in the back seat as pilot-in-command, and Mike taught me to fly my very own 1941 Waco UPF-7.

*Me and Mike, the day I soloed my Waco, 2019.*

What I want to focus on in this story isn’t the tragedy, it’s the determination. You may be surprised to hear that the fear of flying never left me, but I promise you, it really didn’t! Even with a ton of practice, although the fear diminished, it was ever-present, every time I flew. People often think that because I became a competition aerobatic pilot, competing in aerobatic contests in multiple northeast states, I must be fearless, but that’s far from the truth! What happened is that I learned to choose determination over fear, and in the process, the fear didn’t govern me anymore, even after Pat’s accident. This was not easy, but it was incredibly rewarding, and was only possible because of the mentors like Mike and Pat who helped me learn, and trust in my own skills.

Why was I so determined? Because the exhilaration I had tasted eclipsed the fear, and I wanted to taste it again.

Ok, so what does this have to do with art and the creative process? When I was teaching painting at Alfred University, I used to tell my students that the process of making art was 95% uncertainty. Most of your time is spent in a hellish, but blissfully inspired state of blindly creating, like reaching your hand through a small hole in a cotton-filled mattress, and trying to find a pearl. I passed on what a professor once told me: that you must learn to be okay with this uncertainty, and to move forward anyway, trusting your intuition and your skill, and believing that you will figure it out. The exhilaration lies in finding the pearl, and it doesn't happen with every painting, but it always could happen!

Many times, learning to fly also felt like a process of embracing uncertainty, but trusting in my knowledge, experience and intuition to keep going.

Henri Matisse said “creativity takes courage”, and this is true. There is always some fear, or at least discomfort, with looking at a blank canvas or sheet of paper. This is especially true because when you create something for others, you are putting yourself in it, bearing your inner vision to the scrutiny of your viewers. And you are also testing yourself, each time, wondering whether you can pull it off again… wondering whether you can outdo yourself, and always hoping that somehow, you can translate this vision into something that evokes emotion in someone else.

For me, when I’m doing commissions, there’s also a lot of pressure to get it right: I want to make something beautiful and inspiring that reflects the uniqueness of the person I’m painting for. It’s like writing a song, or a poem for someone… you pour your heart and soul into it, and you still have no idea how they will react. But the beauty of creativity is that the more you put your work out in the world, the more you do become comfortable with that uncertainty… and the more that happens, the more you get out of your own way, and let the divine inspiration inside you go to work!

Fear of Flying

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