Love at First Flight

My story is, in many ways, a universal one.  By that I mean that I'm not unique in suffering loss and trauma, or knowing love and joy—we all have these experiences. I’m not aiming to tell a story that’s some kind of revelation; only to tell my story in a way that might help you, my audience, to understand my work, and possibly relate it to something in your life. We understand the world through multiple lenses! If you manage to read through to the end of this rather long missive, I’m both honored and humbled.

Childhood Influences

My life as an artist started in my childhood, way before I could intellectualize, or hypothesize anything about art. For as long as I can remember, I drew obsessively. I never thought anything of it-- I thought all children did. I didn’t realize this wasn’t a universal behavior until I had my own kids, who had their own interests. They liked to draw, like most children, but they weren’t infatuated like I was. That drive to create feels like it’s woven into my genes, and it’s always been what I love to do. 

I went through a traumatic experience at a very young age, and therefore I became a very anxious child.  I internalized the trauma because I didn’t understand what happened to me, and I didn’t have the words to talk about it to my parents.  I had a very loving family, but it was hard to have a normal childhood with such severe anxiety. Drawing helped to calm me., and I repeatedly drew dogs and horses, feeling a kinship with creatures over humans. When I started riding horses at age seven, my anxiety attacks became less frequent, and I gradually became more confident.  I adored horses, and if I wasn’t drawing or riding them, I would run around the woods, constructing jumps and pretending I was a horse.  When I wasn’t anxious, I was a pretty happy kid.  Most of the time, I was lost in my imaginary world. 

My earliest recollections about pattern date back to my childhood as well, and the summers we spent on Martha’s Vineyard Island.  My mother took me on outings to a fabric store, to pick out fabrics for the clothes she sewed for me. I remember roaming the tight aisles filled from floor to ceiling with bolts of patterned fabrics, and how much I enjoyed picking my favorites. This was the beginning of my love for pattern, which has been a principal element in my work for decades. 

Our summer house was just a mile from Katama Airfield, a grass runway near South Beach where biplane rides were offered. My sister and I biked past the airport to the beach almost daily, watching the biplanes take off and land as we swam and played. To this day, the sound of a Waco UPF-7 engine brings back memories of those summers on the island. Over the years, my connection with Katama and Wacos deepened, as you will soon see. 

Academia and Family

During high school and college, my studies took precedence over my passions for horseback riding and drawing. However, upon graduating from Stanford, I began painting immediately after graduation, and my childhood compulsion for creativity reignited.  I enrolled in a BFA program at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), and my professors introduced me to the world of abstraction. The language of abstraction resonated with me, allowing me to explore my unconscious and the darker memories of childhood. I developed a personal language of abstract symbols, using them to hint at my story without revealing it fully. 

Fascinated by Carl Jung’s concept of healing mandalas and archetypal images, I started creating my own mandalas, which emerged as a recurring theme in my work during challenging times. These mandalas provided a structure to narrate my story through various images, and continues to be a favored composition for many commissions I do today. 

After SFAI, I pursued an MFA at Hunter College in New York, where I declared my passion for pattern and decoration, drawing inspiration from decorative arts worldwide. I also revisited Katama Airport to sketch biplanes, incorporating these symbols into my paintings. On a trip to Mexico, I met a Mexican man whom I later married, and had two babies while I was in the MFA program. Upon graduation, after having my third child, I began teaching at the college level and landed a tenure-track position at Alfred University.

While I was teaching at Alfred University, inspired by Chinese Imperial robes, lace and other textiles, I created a series of works that earned me the prestigious Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant. This was a wonderful opportunity to reinvest in my art, and I used part of the money to do a print project with Wingate Studios. However, though my art career was accelerating, my marriage was falling apart, and I soon found myself a single mother of three young children.  Despite the hardship of being a single parent, I found a renewed sense of freedom, so I decided to confront my fear of flying.  

Love at First Flight

It was the summer of 2007, and my sister and I sat on Edgartown beach with our kids, watching the Waco fly overhead advertising rides in bold white letters on the underside of the wings. We quickly produced a plan... we were finally going to go for a ride in the biplane. I called Classic Aviators (the biplane business) and scheduled a ride the next day. Unfortunately, my sister had to leave the island unexpectedly before our ride happened. 

I showed up alone at Katama, which looked like an airport straight out of the 1940’s, with its old dilapidated wooden hangar and the tattered windsocks flagging out over the grassy runways. There were two antique Waco UPF-7s flying that day, which really do date back to the 1940’s!  I was terribly nervous, but Mike, my pilot, put me at ease with his jokes and friendly banter. Before I knew it, we were aloft, and flying over the ocean. I was thrilled! 

Mike tried to point out a skate in the ocean, but I didn’t see it, so he dropped the wing down to point it out, pulling the airplane in a circle. I felt the G-forces and let out an exclamation of joy, because it reminded me of roller coasters, which I loved. Mike asked me if I wanted to have some fun, and not knowing what he meant, I immediately said yes! In retrospect, this is when it ALL began, and I can still run the tape in my mind, in slow motion. 

He told me to hold onto my camera, and to keep my eyes open, and suddenly we were diving down towards the ocean.  Then he pulled the nose up, banked left and suddenly we were upside down! I looked up and saw the ocean through the open cockpit, and soon we were rolling upright, and I was laughing, and possibly (?) squealing!  I felt like a 5-year-old! After the barrel roll, he showed me a loop, which was even more exhilarating. I was out-of-my-mind excited!  

When I said my thanks and goodbyes after the flight, I vowed that I was going to learn how to fly aerobatics. When me and the kids got back home to western NY, I signed up for an intro flight lesson with a flight instructor named Pat, who had been recommended to me by a friend. He was gentle and handsome, experienced and patient, and I quickly fell head over heels in love. Twice: once with Pat, and once with flying! 

Devastating Loss

Little did I know that I would marry Pat a year and a half later, the summer after I got my private pilot’s license. Every summer since my first Waco ride, I returned to Katama for an hour of dual instruction in the Waco, gradually developing a friendship with Mike.  Each time a saw him, I recounted my latest adventures of learning to fly, getting my license and beginning to learn aerobatics, and he beamed at my news.  

In July 2009 , while visiting Katama, I bought Pat a Classic Aviators T-shirt just before our wedding, which he wore proudly, knowing how much I loved flying the Waco. But I never, ever expected to lose him in a tragic plane crash just eleven months later.  On June 21st, 2010, Pat left the house the morning, wearing his Classic Aviators shirt. We kissed goodbye on our doorstep, and he drove to the airport to fly a charter flight for the U.S. Forest Service. And that was the last time I saw my beloved husband. 

Trauma and Early Signs of Illness

It’s hard to explain the magnitude of that loss, and how traumatizing it was to lose my life partner, my best friend, and my flight instructor – and in such a violent and sudden way.  Suffice it to say that in reaction to my pain and devastation, I shut down emotionally. What kept me from giving up on life was my three beautiful children, and the strong instinct I felt to protect them from the unpredictability and brutality of life.  It took me several months of not flying at all before I got the courage to get back in a plane; after all, my worst nightmare had come true. The plane crash I had dreamt of so many nights, and feared for so many years, had become a reality, only it happened to Pat, and not me. But eventually, my passion for flying won out over my fear. Pat had given me the gift of my wings by teaching me to fly, and I wasn’t ready to give that up.  

But my body was beginning to protest the grief and trauma that I buried inside.  I wasn’t sleeping well, I developed IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) and became very fatigued and achy. After many tests, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, but I managed it without medication so I could keep flying.  I was very susceptible to graying out during aerobatic flights, from pulling G’s.

What I didn’t know is that I was developing dysautonomia, which is a dysfunction of the nerves that regulate nonvoluntary body functions, such as heart rate, or blood pressure. My blood pressure was getting lower and lower by the year, and the last summer that I competed, I blacked out while flying aerobatics alone.

This is called G-LOC, or Gravity induced loss of consciousness, and is extremely dangerous. Luckily, I passed out after pulling out of a dive, so my airplane was level and climbing. I came to, very confused, a few miles from where I had been practicing, and a few thousand feet lower.

That really shook me up, and for the rest of the season, I took a safety pilot with me during competition flights.  Although I didn’t heed it, this was another of my body’s warnings that things were not right. 

Aerobatics gave me a goal to work towards, as I improved my skills and rose to the next level in competition (from Primary, to Sportsman). Prior to Pat’s accident, I had flown two contests, as a beginner, with a safety pilot.  Once back in the sky, I threw myself into aerobatics, bought my own Super Decathlon, and learned how to fly aerobatics solo.  For about six years, from 2010-2016, I practiced hard and flew to competitions all over the northeast, winning trophies and medals and soaking up the support and comradery of the aerobatic community.  

Reinventing Myself

In 2015 I left my teaching position, moved to western MA and applied to a handful of schools to become a nurse. I picked U Mass Amherst because it was an accelerated BSN program, and I could get it done in 2.5 intense, grueling years. During this time, I also got my EMT, rode the ambulance for the fire department, and essentially became an insatiable adrenaline junkie. The ER, ICU, and the ambulance were the places I felt most alive, so that’s the type of nursing I ended up doing. When I graduated from nursing school, I decided I needed a new challenge, and sold my Decathlon to buy my own Waco UPF-7. 

And that is how, eight years after I lost my husband, I ended up back at Katama as pilot-in-command of my own 1941 restored Waco.  Mike taught me to fly this beast, which turned out to be extremely challenging due to the weight of the old bird, the size of her huge radial engine up front, and the fact that the center of gravity was far behind the pilot. This meant that during every landing, I was blind and could not see the runway at all because the nose was in the way; AND, upon touch down, the tail of the airplane wanted to whip around to the front, which would send the airplane into a dreaded, disastrous ground-loop. I had to learn 1) to use my peripheral vision to land the plane, and 2) to dance my feet on those rudders to keep her absolutely straight, or end up in the bushes. And miraculously (and I credit Mike for being an excellent instructor) I did it! I soloed the plane and eventually flew her back to Northampton Airport, where I was based, but not before I contracted Lyme Disease. 

Chronic Illness

There is so much I could write about chronic illness and my journey to discover what was ailing me, but it would take pages. I had to leave nursing due to the fatigue, systemic inflammation, pain and debilitating neurological effects. I couldn't remember words and events, I couldn’t drive in the mornings, and even passed out while driving one day. I bounced from doctor to doctor, had hundreds of tests done, and saw every kind of specialist who would see me, but nobody could determine the issue. Some suggested I was depressed, others suggested post-Lyme syndrome, or sero-negative inflammatory arthritis, but the immunosuppressives for those conditions didn’t work. I finally ended up in Calgary, Canada, under the care of a doctor who saved my life. He specializes in complex chronic illness, and he diagnosed me with mold-toxicity in addition to

Lyme, Bartonella and MCAS (mast-cell activation syndrome). After three months of daily IVs, daily bio/neuro feedback training, a drastically limited diet and a refrigerator full of supplements I took five times a day, I began to feel that recovery might be possible.

My True Calling

It’s been a multi-year recovery process, and though I’m far from my old self, I’m doing a lot better. I hope to fly a Waco again and do some gentle aerobatics, but in the meantime, I’m adjusting to a calmer, slower lifestyle. The good fortune in this saga is I’m finally devoted myself full-time to my art! In retrospect, I’ve known all along that painting was my calling, but I didn’t know how to make it my living, and I was scared to try. I’m still figuring that out, but much of my income comes from the commissions I do, which I enjoy immensely. 

I can honestly say, I’m so happy to be finally doing what I love! And if there’s a silver lining to these years of chronic illness, trauma, and tragedy, it’s this: it’s all forced me to really get to know myself: my strengths and my weaknesses, my innermost fears and my emotional pain. Through deep inquiry, I am learning to listen to the wisdom of my heart and my body, and this is the healing process. I have met wonderful people along the way, and I’ve had some really amazing experiences even when at my sickest, and I’m lucky to have done that. And I have discovered I have many friends who have been extremely supportive. I believe my story is one of resilience that might encourage others that there is a way forward. It’s a process of self-discovery, a journey… and though each person’s is different, it’s so worth the effort and strength it takes. 

Thank you for reading this far, and for your interest in my work! I hope that something in here resonates with you. ❤️