This interview was recorded via phone.
Catherine,
Welcome to the show.
I absolutely have loved following you on Instagram over the past few months and seeing the work that you produce.
I want to start in a different place than we normally do here on Coming Back and have you tell us how it is you've got to be doing the art that you're doing?
Well,
I am what I call an unexpected artist that wasn't part of my life plan by any means.
I actually was in the middle of a career development job.
I worked for a college and I was really confident what I did and I had prepared my whole life actually to basically take a larger career development job at a college.
But I was very,
Very stressed and I actually didn't like my job very much and I thought it was pretty ironic that I was a career development director and hated my job.
So I started doing career development on myself and it began with me just making a long list of all the things I'd love to do as a kid that no one told me to do.
So I found the word collage in the middle of this list and in my family of origin,
I was considered the unartistic one.
So I can't draw or paint but the word collage I thought,
Well certainly,
You know,
I could do that.
So one Sunday,
I pulled out all the catalogs in the house like the LL beans and the Sears catalogs and I ripped them up and I put them back together in a collage and I had so much freaking fun doing it that I started doing it every day for three years.
And I just had piles and piles and piles of these collages but they were really juvenile looking and I know they were because my colleagues and my students would come into my office and see these framed pictures of my collages all over and they all said the same thing.
They all said,
Oh you have children and I don't have children.
But that didn't bother me at all because these were my soul hanging on the wall.
I thought they were,
You know,
They were just who I was.
So that's how it started but it was really a hobby and it was a way to relieve stress from this very demanding job.
At some point,
I actually left my college job and went to work for the publisher of the Myers-Briggs which is what I currently do.
And I eventually took an art class during that time by a magazine collage artist.
And in just one week's time,
My skills ramped up considerably to the point where I actually loved what I did.
I always thought they were great in my soul but they weren't actually like something somebody would want other than me.
So I took one of my new collages and I Xeroxed it and sent it to a friend in California and she framed it,
Put it on her wall and a rich client came in and offered to buy it.
Then that changed my entire trajectory.
I said,
Oh my god,
If I can make a living doing this,
I'd be just like,
That'd be like the best thing in the whole world.
But it took me like several years after that to actually do something with it.
I actually just,
I did a tremendous amount of research.
I went to every gallery opening,
Every art festival,
Talked to every artist I get my hands on to find out how you make a living as an artist because I didn't want to be a starving one.
I wanted to be a thriving one.
So after four years of this,
I eventually quit my job working for the Myers-Briggs company and went to do full-time art.
So that's how it started.
I was lucky enough to be able to do full-time art for four years and I was in complete bliss most of the time.
Some of the time I was also in complete agony because learning how to be a full-time artist and depending on that for an income was also really hard at the same time.
But the art of it was amazing.
I just had so much fun.
Then at the four-year point,
I had gotten to the point where I was making,
You know,
A fairly decent amount of money.
I was paying for one-third of my family income.
I was married and so I had one-third of the bills on my side.
I felt pretty good about that and I was growing.
But I went for my annual mammogram and I came back.
I was 44 years old and I got a diagnosis of breast cancer and I was shocked off my gourd because I am very healthy.
I have no history in my family at all.
I eat well,
I exercise.
I'm a very unlikely candidate but here it was.
I had breast cancer.
So this is kind of when I had a kind of three-part kind of devastation happened like right in the same kind of time period.
That was the first part.
So I was in the middle of trying to figure out what to do with this.
When you get a diagnosis like that,
It's not like an obvious thing like you should do this.
I had all kinds of options that I had to figure out and I was scared and you know crying sometimes but throughout the whole period of that,
I kept bringing myself back to something I had learned from Eckhart Tolle which is a new earth he wrote.
The idea that in this moment,
I was actually fine.
So even though I was scared off my gourd that you know I could die or I got to lose the breast but in the moment,
I was just fine.
So throughout the entire time,
I just kept bringing myself back which actually kept me really grounded for everything that was going to come.
So I eventually decided to get a mastectomy just because it was no logical thing to do and as I was healing from that,
I just kept bringing myself back to what's really now.
Am I in pain?
Am I okay?
Am I going to die?
No,
Right now,
I'm not dead.
Actually,
Right now,
I'm thriving.
I have time off.
I get to meditate,
Journal.
This is actually a pretty good thing.
So I kept bringing myself back to what was true in the moment which was kind of my coping mechanism that worked really well.
And as I was actually waiting for the doctor,
I had just had a breast surgery and I was waiting for the doctor to tell me whether I would get chemotherapy or not because it was not obvious whether that would happen.
My old corporate job with the Myers-Briggs called me and said,
Would you like to come back full-time and do basically 45 weeks on the road?
So 45 weeks out of 52,
Next year,
You're on the road and it's a lot of money.
Would you like it?
And my heart said,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No.
I'm going back to art as fast as I can.
But I really believe that when things are presented to you,
They're presented to you for a reason.
And maybe I don't know what's best for me.
So I made this little deal with the universe and I said,
If I don't get chemotherapy,
So if I'm.
.
.
So nothing.
.
.
I don't need it.
I don't need chemotherapy,
Then I'll go back to the.
.
.
And do this gig for one year.
I'm only doing it for a year though.
I'll say I'm working longer but I'm leaving after a year.
But if I do get chemotherapy,
I'll go back to art and I'll focus on my body and my soul.
So lo and behold,
I did not get chemotherapy,
Which was lovely,
And I went back to my job for a year.
So meanwhile,
I was going through all of this stuff,
Trying to be as present as possible through the journey.
And my husband was going through his grieving process.
He.
.
.
At first,
He was scared I was going to die.
His own mother had died about a decade earlier from breast cancer.
So he was pretty freaked out about what had happened.
And then eventually,
He started mourning his own potential death.
He was going through his own crisis like,
Is this all I want in life?
What else do I want?
Am I in the right place?
And that led to him having an affair with someone that we had been actually socializing with that I thought was a friend of mine.
And he asked for a divorce and went in to live with her.
So because I had gone back to work about a year or two earlier from that,
I was actually in a place that it was okay for me to be single.
Although I didn't want to be single,
I was actually in love with my husband at the time it happened.
I.
.
.
Now I was financially okay.
I had health insurance.
I had a salary.
So then I realized why the deal with the universe worked.
That I was meant to go back to work because it actually lined up beautifully that I could actually take care of myself.
If I hadn't been a full-time artist without having that kind of backup system,
It would have been harder.
I could have done it but I would have been struggling quite a bit,
You know,
For the health insurance and just the regular steady income is harder.
When he left,
It was the only time my entire life I've ever used the word devastation.
And that's what.
.
.
That's all I can.
.
.
The only word that was described it.
Because I might.
.
.
You know,
Breast cancer was a piece of cake compared to having your entire life then,
You know,
Totally upended on top of you.
I went through the most intense grieving I've ever gone through in my life.
I basically cried on the kitchen floor intensely about every three or four days.
So I'd cry really,
Really like wholeheartedly.
And then I'd get out of my system and I would go about my day and I kept coming back to the present moment.
Like what's true right now?
What's true right now is I'm thriving.
I'm happy,
I have a good job,
I have great friends.
And then something would trigger me.
I'd look around the house,
You know,
See a memory and I would be on the floor again crying.
And this kind of cycle of being just completely okay with where I was and completely honest with the grief lasted for about ten weeks.
And in the middle and middle of all that,
You know,
I had counselors who were helping me and,
You know,
I was getting some support.
But most of it really came from me being just completely present with whatever I was feeling but not allowing myself to stay in the grief when it really wasn't true in that moment.
In the moment,
For the most part,
I was happy.
And I kept saying to myself,
Somehow,
Some way,
This too is for my highest good.
That everything up into my entire,
Everything that's happened to me in my entire life that is so-called bad had always been something that had turned into something pretty amazing.
Wasn't always obvious in the beginning but in the end,
Like going back to my job,
That was the last thing I ever wanted.
But it turned out pretty good.
So I got through all of that and eventually,
I got to the point where I was healthy enough,
Emotionally healthy,
That I could start dating and I did.
And I actually found an amazing man that I married two years ago that I adore.
And I have been back at my job now for,
Well,
At the point that I got married,
I'd been back at my job for 10 years and I had done almost no art in 10 years.
And the entire time,
I was loving my job because I kept getting better and better training assignments with the Myers-Briggs and that right now,
I'm a certification trainer for them.
And I love,
Love,
Love the work but I've always mourned that I gave up my art.
And every time I look at my art around the house or people mention it,
It's a real sadness for me.
So two years ago,
2015 in January,
I sat myself down and I gave myself a good talking to and I said,
You know,
I don't want to get my job up,
At least not at the moment I don't,
But I want art.
You know,
That is my calling for life.
And I made a plan in 2015 and the plan looked like this.
I made a schedule for when I was at home because I'm home about a third of the time.
So I get up at 5 a.
M.
I do art for about an hour or two and then I do my day gig which is in my home.
And then the other two-thirds of the time,
I'm on the road in cities all around the country and I do art at night.
So from like 7 to 10 or 11 at night,
I do art in my hotel room.
And I stick with that and I've made a lot of art because of that.
The other thing I did was I realized that if I brought my art supplies on the road with me,
I could do a whole bunch of art.
So I am the opposite of a light packer.
I pack two 50-pound bags.
One of those bags is just full of paint,
Canvas,
Paint brushes,
A drop cloth,
You know,
Everything I need to basically transform my hotel room into an art studio for myself at night.
The third thing I did was once I realized this is really,
You know,
I had to somehow integrate these two lives,
My art and my Myers Briggs life,
I started saving money like a banshee.
And I've always been a person that lived under her means always.
I could buy a house that's way under what I can afford.
I have a 10-year-old car.
But I really kind of ramped it up,
You know.
I put myself on a really strict budget and with the idea that if the opportunity ever presented itself again that it felt right to do,
I would be,
I would have the savings that I wouldn't have to depend on my art,
At least initially,
You know,
So I'd have a little grace period,
You know,
Until I get myself ramped up with art again.
It just so happens that two months ago I was talking to my boss who I adore and I just proposed the idea that what would she think if I actually quit my job and just worked as a contractor one week a month.
And I was completely shocked that she thought that was the most brilliant idea because it actually served my company as well.
So as of January 1,
After 12 years of basically mourning the loss of my art,
I am going to be a full-time artist again,
Just working one week a month just to basically,
You know,
Subsidize to make sure that,
Just to take the pressure,
You know,
Off having to make money from art,
Although that's certainly my intention.
I want to make a living from my art,
But at the moment I won't have to,
At least initially.
And that's it.
That's my story.
Oh my gosh,
I'm so excited by all of this.
First off,
Congratulations on being able to come back home to your art and circle around to it full-time.
Thank you.
Because that's such a huge,
It's a huge joy for anybody who loves to create and I think we all inherently love to create.
We just have to find what we love to create and you have found it.
And so being able to come home to it and be able to do it all the time,
Very,
Very soon,
Is like this impending gift.
It's like,
It's like going to sleep the night before field trip where you're like so excited about waking up the next day because you know you're just about to have such a blast.
I have a similar analogy.
I say that it's like waiting for Christmas to come,
You know.
You know it's going to be incredible,
But you know the trick is between now and January 1 and focus on just being really,
Really present with what I have now,
Which is I'm doing art in hotel rooms and that's good too.
And I really,
Really,
I mean I truly love my job with the Myers-Briggs,
But it's my vocation,
It's not my calling.
You know it's something I love to do,
Yet nothing comes close to making art.
So the whole thing came about really because I have a philosophy of life that you just surrender to what's being presented to you,
Even though sometimes it's the shittiest thing in the world that's being presented.
That somehow everything that comes into my life is for my good as opposed to something to punish me or something hard,
But I also don't deny that it's hard.
Yet I'm you know I constantly come back to well why you know can I just be okay with this and actually love this.
And somehow magically the whole thing transforms you know into where I'm meant to be,
Even though it might take a decade for it to actually give here,
Which it has in this case.
I have a recurring theme that keeps coming up for you as I was listening to you tell your story and I wrote down the Eckhart Tolle quotes that have guided you through and it seems like you have,
You're insisting on being alive.
There's just like it's insistence that you're present,
There's this insistence that things are happening in your life for your highest good,
There's an insistence that things are going to work out and you're going to be okay and in this moment that is where you're meant to live.
I want to know for you where all of these mentalities came from,
Like did they come from being diagnosed with breast cancer,
The divorce,
The losing your art and mourning that or are these ingrained from before all of that happened from previous losses?
What a great question Shelby.
You know it probably was you know resilience that I learned as a child.
It originally came from,
Although I wasn't taught this,
But I was raised by a schizophrenic mother and you know I just learned early on that it's going to turn out okay even when it looks like crap.
Somehow if I stay present with where I am and don't dwell in the tragedy you know whatever the tragedy is that it kind of guides me through without getting kind of mired down the muck of the pain.
Not that the pain is not real because it's been real a lot but I somehow I just don't allow myself to stay there.
But the kind of probably the real turning point was when I found myself in my college job.
You know it was a job that I prepared for you know for a decade to get there and I really hated my job you know so I repeated it over and over again I hate my job.
I started this mantra that went like this.
I said this moment is my destiny.
So instead of resisting where I was,
I started looking at every painful thing that was in front of me as somehow I'm supposed to be here because I am here.
When you're on the kitchen floor that's one of the hardest things to embrace is when you're on the kitchen floor.
I want to know what you were telling yourself in those moments.
On the kitchen floor I was actually in I was trying to get rid of all the thoughts in my head and just fully get into the crime.
I wasn't trying to get myself out of crying.
Instead I was kind of like almost hugging myself saying it's okay you know like cry.
Crying is what you're supposed to be doing right now because that's what's coming up.
But by fully crying you know could last anywhere from 20 minutes to two hours of crying.
Then all that energy goes and then I'm back to my normal self which is everything's fine.
And then I would just constantly bring myself to what is right now?
What is true now?
And what's true right now is I'm fine.
I'm not sad.
But then you know 20 minutes from now I could walk around the corner and see a picture of something and I could cry again.
But I just continually brought myself back to what is what's really happening now.
Were there ever people in your life that were concerned with the mentality of right now I'm fine and worried that maybe you were glossing over your pain or not acknowledging it?
Like who was supporting you in all of this and what were their thoughts on how you were reacting to the cancer and your former husband and leaving your art?
I don't think anyone ever thought I was glossing over it because I never did gloss over it.
You know I never denied that it was devastating.
And I got fully into the devastation when it you know when it fills your body and you go all you can do was cry.
I never tried to suppress that ever.
But I also didn't want to stay in it you know 24-7.
So you know when that volcano was over you know and all the emotion had gone out of me then I just tried to be very present for what was true in that second.
Like was I still sad?
Well maybe there was some sadness there but I'm also having a nice gosh of wine or I'm talking to a friend or I'm reading a good book.
So just trying to be really present in the fact that in not every single moment with sadness there was a lot of actual joy that was happening interwoven with it.
So there wasn't really denial.
I love that.
I love that.
There's always I did an episode on something called spiritual bypassing where we use these beliefs sometimes of everything happens for a reason and all for the highest good to totally diminish or decrease the fact that we're feeling pain and a lot of times I'm around for the best people to point that out.
And so to hear you that I cried on the kitchen floor and my friends weren't concerned for me and I was actually feeling through and not afraid to feel through those tears.
That sounds like learned resilience but yes knowing that the tears will end,
Knowing that the sadness will be not replaced with but will flow through periods of joy and periods of mourning and things like that as well.
I love I kind of want to shift to how grief relates to your art because when you post images up on Instagram you don't just post art and say this is what I'm creating now or this is what I'm up to or this is the hotel that I'm painting in or collaging in.
You have these these inspirational phrases and these calls to action that literally wake up other people to their artistic talent and to their power and ability as humans to be present in the world.
And so I'm wondering if you had to post one of your pieces of art along with a message for people who are grieving which piece would you choose and what message would you say?
Wow.
Okay.
Well the one that popped into my head which I trust is it's a piece called Something Incredible Is About to Happen and it was actually named by a friend that you know I was in the middle of my art career and I was a little scared at times.
It's scary being an artist and not having a you know you're not really sure if you're gonna so-called make it.
And she named this piece for me Something Incredible Is About to Happen and it basically kind of epitomizes how I think about life.
That even though it may not look so great on the surface in any given moment I truly believe that's the truth even though in the moment it may look awful.
Oh I love that and that's what you would tell grievers as well.
I would and the other one actually let me give you a second one.
The other one is actually it's my life motto and it's called This Moment is My Destiny and that's probably the one both of them together are how I kind of live my life.
That even though like for instance this week I have to do a lot of work for my day gig and there's a lot of things I'm going to get into that you know aren't that pleasant I'm gonna be doing but I continually pull myself back to the moment and say no this moment's my destiny this is what I'm supposed to be doing and that's how I've gotten through all the tough times in my life.
That instead of resisting it and saying no I don't want to be here or glossing it over and making it you know like sunshine and roses I go no I'm supposed to be right here I'm supposed to be on kitchen floor crying so cry it out and really cry don't just like baby cry cry and then the next moment I might be reading a book and no tears there's no tears present I can't even feel them so it's kind of like being all in but all in honestly wherever I am this is where I'm supposed to be so I'm gonna be completely here and no matter what it looks like.
I absolutely love that feeling of being all in because that is something that took a while to click for me as a person who is grieving as well because we all grew up with different stories about grief like you're not allowed to cry or you have to go cry in your room or we can replace the loss but there's no reason to cry like all these things and so I just love the idea of grief being all in.
If somebody is looking to go all in and maybe crying isn't their choice of expression what are some other tips you may have for for grievers who are in that darkness right now?
Well there were many times during like all these different periods when I was really sad that I wasn't maybe you know crying was the response when I lost my marriage but other times it's not crying it's feeling this pain in my heart and you know you feel like this heaviness in your body or you just feel like oh this is like you know like a lead that's like you're walking around with this thing that's so heavy and when I'm in those places instead of trying to talk myself out of it or you know trying to like say oh this is supposed to be like this you're meant to be here so just fuck up.
Instead I'm saying to myself just hold that pain so it's like holding a child but you're holding yourself so I allow myself just to feel the heaviness I'm just completely present with my own pain and I'm not crying I'm just it's okay to feel bad but for me if I really go into fully feeling bad it lifts just like crying goes away you can't cry all the time either and then I find myself an hour later going back to my you know a normal place which is you know I'm just fine but it's not denying you know I don't deny that and you know in some moment I just may not like what I'm doing to the point where it feels like a blood balloon you know is holding me down so I just allow myself to feel it but the key is feeling it without all the mental chatter so I feel bad but I try to let go of all the thoughts because sometimes the thoughts are actually a way to not feel the pain actually you know if I can keep like kind of mentally analyze it or mentally talk about it or accuse people or kind of talk talk talk about you know about it in my head that kind of dissipates me actually feeling the awfulness so if I just kind of like silently just hold myself it's like being totally present for a child and not trying to talk them out of feeling better or feeling worse you know like it's okay to feel bad so I allow myself to feel bad and then it lifts if you had to put your finger on the one the one thing that helped you come back what would you say that was for you the one thing that's helped me come back probably my most of my life is completely surrendering to what I've been given so I continually I use different words for it for different parts of my life different times of my life but it always comes down to the same thing that I accept that whatever is happening whether it's good or bad is somehow gonna take me to a better place so can I just surrender and follow what it is that I'm being given now you know whether it's cancer or you know a husband leaving or job coming back that I didn't want you know somehow those paths have always led me to someplace pretty extraordinary even though in the moment it's worse than it could have happened but there's an inner trust because it's always happened this way that every devastation if I'm I fully am allowed to mourn it and greet it it lifts and I follow the next thing that comes along the next whatever it is you know like I got a I got a job that I didn't want but that job actually saved my butt and it's been you know quite the amazing gift for me I'm gonna say it again but it feels a lot like coming home and that's a that's a mantra I use for myself a lot it's just this is this is coming home this is coming back this is facing the present and your grief and your heart and your inner child with clear eyes and just saying this is where and who we are right now and that's okay I'm just loving that place that you're creating today I'm soaking up the space that you're creating today I have one last question for you before we get off the call today and we tell people where we can find you but I want to know what has changed besides skill and besides style in your art kind of in the before and after of this period of what you call devastation hmm what's changed yes great question Shelby um before I went through this the big devastation which was the ex leaving I used to do very detailed 3d three-dimensional collages that were very intense they were like putting together a hundred little pieces of paper that create a puzzle that looked like a painting but it was actually a collage very took on me a long time very intense work what that's been worked into is me learning to paint so what I've learned over the years is to follow what my heart is wanting to do so I did these want this one salad collage for a very long time which is on you know and I still sell those things but I but a year two years ago I just had this this like yearning to add paint to my collages so that's what I do now so I actually paint and collage at the same time and it's actually freed me up you know now I'm much more expressive it's not so it's actually what I can express what I feel in the moment as opposed to I'm creating something over the course of a year because every collage took a year before so now I can create one you know still takes me a while but you maybe a month or maybe even two weeks compared to a year so that's what it is I'm just more free as an artist and I'm hoping that continues you know when I quit my job I can't wait to take art classes and learn new techniques and you know just continue to evolve not keep going doing the same thing but doing something even more expressive of who I am as I grow that feels so joyful and so free and so fitting for coming back from everything that you have you're like I haven't chosen this I mean you didn't even really choose to be an artist you just woke up to the fact that you were but you're not even choosing collage you're not even choosing painting you're like a president you're not even choosing this job you don't choose breast-case you don't choose divorce but this moment is my destiny and right lean in and all that that's right I that's basically it I love it I love it I'm applauding over here because I think it's just such a cool space that you've created with your grief and this is what I love so much about coming back in this podcast is that everyone chooses to come back with different ideas and different mantras and different books and authors and practices and resources that they put into place and I think the space that you've created yourself for yourself is really working for you but I think it can work for a lot of people and inspire a lot of people as well
