Mask and Flippers

I have always lived near water and as a child, my family vacationed near water. When I was ten years old, we went to a beautiful, then little known, sleepy resort town on the Mayan Riviera. In 1980, Cancun had all the things I loved as a child, only better. The water was crystal clear, the weather warm, and it was a quiet natural retreat where I could explore the tidal pools and think alone.

On that same first trip, we went on an excursion to a small lagoon and underground river where I snorkeled for the first time. I put on my mask and flippers and got in the water. At that time, I remember feeling very much in my element. There was a sense of comfort and amazement in this environment. Looking back, it had all the trappings: risk, connection with nature, interesting things to observe and ponder…..silence.

About 6 years later I upgraded to the same gear with a scuba tank. I remember the colors of that world, all awash in blue. I could go to the seafloor and just sit there, observing everything, studying it all, taking it in. I felt like myself there. I felt at home.

Returning to Myself

That feeling of amazement: observance of a never-ending stream of interesting things; is something I’ve sought out my entire life. It’s where my mind and body work best together. It’s where I feel alive, intelligent, and like I’m moving forward in the world.

There were other times I felt like this. When I first moved to Mexico at 18 and was learning the people, landscape, language, and culture. After I was divorced 18 years later and seeking out an education. I could finally breathe, even though things were hard. I was working, raising children, and trying to find myself again but it was stimulating and challenging. I felt in my element again.

I remember trying to figure out what to study. As a newly single mom, it would have to be something I could turn into a career. After a short time at the University of Phoenix where things didn’t feel quite right, I sought out a different institution at the urging of a very close friend.

I started at Drury University in 2007. My course of study was duel: Advertising/ PR and Organizational Leadership. I was 37 years old and working full time so some courses were taken online and others were night classes I drove an hour to attend 2 nights a week. After working a couple of different office jobs, I settled on a job in retail, which allowed a slightly more flexible schedule. In the fall of 2010, I had enough credits to graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Ad/PR. I could stay and go 11 more hours to get the Organizational Leadership degree as well, or I could graduate now. Although I had enjoyed studying at this level, I was dissatisfied and hungry for more so I settled on graduating with honors in December and applied for graduate school instead.

I finally landed in a fast track graduate program with Drury’s Communication Department, deciding on a Master of Communication with an emphasis in Organizational Leadership and Change. From the first day of class, I finally felt challenged and in my element. It was like putting on the mask and flippers all over again and seeing the world I only dreamt of while moving through the mundaneness of life. I found what felt like a community there, something I hadn’t had since being a part of Speech and Theatre in high school. There were people like me who were moving forward in life, learning, digging deeper into those things they found interesting and worthy of their time. They were growing. They were hungry like me. The professors there were engaging, personable, and supportive. They seemed to love what they do and it was contagious. Once again, I felt awash in the colors of the sea. There was both a sense of excitement and calm. I was home again….I was finally returning to my true self.

Connecting the Dots

I don’t recall the exact course but it was while studying Change Leadership with Associate Professor Jonathan Groves that we were required to watch a Stanford Commencement Speech by Steve Jobs. In the speech, he tells three stories of his life. The first is ‘Connect the Dots’. It’s about looking back on your life and recognizing how all the little things that happened have connected to lead to where you are now. He states, “You can only connect the dots looking backward, not looking forward”. I remember feeling frustrated by this concept because I thought: If we could look back on things and see how those moments in time had contributed to where we are, we should be able to look at where we are and how that could contribute to where we are going, i.e. ‘connect the dots’ looking forward. Or maybe that’s ‘creating dots’, not connecting, necessarily?

The second part of the speech was about living each day as your last. As someone who spent a lot of time with the wrong person, I certainly understand the need to not waste time overthinking the past or the future but to work personal growth today, and everything else would fall into place. Some of the most defining moments in life can come from thinking you have nothing to lose. If today is it, there is no reason to hold back.

The last part of the speech really spoke to me: "stay hungry, stay foolish”. This was the last of the three stories and an idea I really understood, as I was always hungry and a little bit foolish but looking back and connecting those dots showed me that my moments of foolishness had paid off for the most part. Yes, there were a couple of big screw-ups but I learned from them and moved on. Looking back, the only times in my life which had resulted in stagnation and negativity were the result of growing complacent with my surroundings and losing sight of myself.

Be Better

I received a Master of Arts in Communication from Drury in May of 2012. Since then, my children have grown up and I moved to Texas. I was self-employed for a year and a half doing communication for a law firm client when I realized this wasn’t what I wanted to do, at least not forever. I was good at it but it didn’t make me happy and it felt like work. I had also been teaching adjunct for Drury and that wasn’t it either. As I tried to figure out how to move forward, I looked back to connect the dots.

An ongoing theme in my life is that I’ve always wanted to be better. Not better than other people, just better than I am. Playing with visual presentation has always fascinated me. As a child, I endlessly rearranged my furniture and entered poster contests. Those things seemed to come naturally to me and I felt like I was in the right groove while doing them. So much so, that I lost track of time. In high school, I did a forensic competition in prose and poetry interpretation and theatre arts as well as speech and excelled at it. I spent hours at school rehearsing and working on sets. As a young mother in Mexico, I taught for a private school where I used art projects and dialogues I’d written to teach students English. I had the pleasure of exercising my creative muscle to design floats for parades and costumes for students to wear in them.

As a divorcee in Southwest Missouri, I worked on visual presentation projects in the retail stores I worked in. In graduate school, all of these presentational skills came together with research to help me excel. Looking back, my natural abilities in the visual arts and in communicating with others had been the one common thread.

How could I use that to move forward and stop struggling to find my place in the world? During graduate school, filling my mind with new information and concepts had sparked the creative painter in me again I began painting regularly as a hobby. In 2017, I finally decided to make art a profession. I realize choosing art as a main profession is risky and foolish in most people’s eyes but it felt right to me and working for myself from home in communication was helping me achieve it. None of this would be possible if not for my own quest to be better. I constantly reexamined myself as if to fine-tune my own life.

Finally Home

In the summer of 2017, I painted my first series. It was composed of 20 paintings. The series was called Under Water. The concept of the series explored the emotional connection throughout my life with water. The series featured two very large paintings and an assortment of smaller sizes. “Tidal Pool” 48x62 inch acrylic and graphite on canvas had been inspired by those days exploring the tidal pools and the exuberance of those explorations. The second large painting was a 48x48 inch acrylic and graphite on canvas awash in blues and subtle tones of pinkish sand and white. The painting is entitled “Mask and Flippers”. It is a painting, which tells the story of finally coming home. Painting it felt like putting on the mask and flippers again and exploring the underwater world. I felt in my element and like I was embarking on a new journey. There was a sigh of relief and comfort in expressing that in a painting.

In 2019, more than two years later, an instructor in the Drury graduate program and appreciator of all things artistic contacted me on Facebook and wanted to know whether I would consider donating a painting. At first, I was apprehensive because, just a couple of years in, I didn’t feel in a position to be giving work away but after thinking about it, donating a painting to my alma mater seemed the appropriate thing to do. Drury’s Communication Department was, after all, the place that brought me back to myself. I sent pictures of available work and asked them to choose. Amazingly, they chose Mask and Flippers.

I feel honored to have Mask and Flippers on display at the Shewmaker Communication Center. The two are connected in ways that are hard to explain but in a nutshell, they both represent a homecoming of sorts. They are symbols of the dots which connect in my personal journey and make me who I am now. They contribute to current and future successes so it seems very fitting that Mask and Flippers should find its home there.

Remember Who You Are, Where You Are From, And Why You Are Here

My high school theatre group had a saying before shows: Remember Who You Are, Where You’re From, and Why You’re Here. At 50, I think I finally understand the depth of its meaning. While I hope to continue to grow and change in life as it moves forward, I finally understand how to look back and connect the dots. My interests as a child, experiences as a young adult and mother, an advanced education and figuring out how to apply that to my life. I used to worry that art wasn’t enough…that it didn’t matter enough and wasn’t important enough to make me matter as a human being. I still struggle with those thoughts but I also realize that some of the greatest civilizations on earth have been some of the most artistic and they used their creativity to make great advances. I communicate with people through painting, writing, and talking about art at shows. Although it is harder to pinpoint how they are reached and where that wave ripples out to, I still know it is impactful. I am finally home, and so is Mask and Flippers.

Looking Back and Moving Forward