Finding Your Passion | I Got Here As Soon As I Could

Finding your passion can take a long road — but the timing is always divine.

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It’s 1968, and I’m eight years old and sitting on the big brown plaid couch in the Schiller’s house. They live down the street from us in my new neighborhood in Syosset, Long Island. The TV is on and I’m next to Keith, the oldest kid and the cutest boy I’ve ever seen. He’s nine. Robbie is there also. He’s cute too, but not as cute as Keith.

We’re waiting for something to come on TV. Something very special to me.

Before my family moved to Syosset, we lived in the East 80s in Manhattan. I went to a little public school on East 82nd Street. When I was in first grade I had the most wonderful teacher. Her name was Miss Seidman. She loved art. We didn’t have formal art classes in my school. Everything we learned happened in the classroom.

Miss Seidman knew I loved art too. Painting and drawing. The culture of her classroom was very open. If I wanted to paint, I painted. I was free to be at the easel in the back of the classroom as much as I liked. That year there was a citywide art contest sponsored by CBS and the Brooklyn Museum. Miss Seidman entered one of my paintings. I didn’t know anything about it until my mom and dad told me I’d won. My painting was going on tour! It was displayed at Bloomingdale’s and Gimbels, and at the Brooklyn Museum! We went to see it at each show.

We moved at the end of June, and I received a letter from CBS that included a beautiful award certificate, a letter saying that my painting would be displayed as background art to the CBS “eye” logo, on a specific date and time. There was also a note saying that they were unable to return my painting. While the idea of being on TV was exciting to me, the fact that I would never get my painting back made me sad and angry.

So we’re sitting in the den, waiting for the commercial break so that we can see my painting.

And then there it was! MY PAINTING! It was of a little man wearing a black top hat and black suit, flying a kite with two little kids, with clouds in the sky on a beautiful day. I felt proud. Keith appraised it quietly, nodded his head, and said in all seriousness, “That’s good… really good.” I was happy. I knew I wanted to be an artist.

When I started going to school in Syosset, the culture was different. Art class was offered once a week for 45 minutes. That wasn’t nearly enough! Fortunately, my parents were designers, so my exposure to the arts was very rich at home

When I was in third grade, I had two epileptic seizures in my classroom, in front of all of my classmates. It terrified them and made me an outcast.

I went from being a confident child to being a fearful one. I doubted myself.

As I grew older, I isolated myself. I never stopped creating art. I was sent to art camps in the summers, and my parents supported my interests wholeheartedly. But I had an internal voice, a voice that said, “You’re not good enough, your artwork isn’t good enough,” and I spent too much time comparing myself to other kids who were young artists. Everybody’s artwork was better than mine. I started losing my dream.

From junior high on, I had a dream of going to RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design. That was my school. But when the time came to start the college application process I was so insecure and so afraid of rejection that I applied to only one school, a school with an open-enrollment policy, so I knew I would get in. I never talked about my feelings with anyone. I had no idea what I would study. I had given up the idea that I would study art.

I dropped out of school after seven months, and began a 33-year job journey. Some jobs I created for myself. Every time I had a self-made job, I would design a business card for myself. I loved creating the cards. I had a pile of them. The jobs they described were never as good as the process of designing the cards!

I tried one thing after another, enjoying the work at first and then becoming bored and frustrated. My heart was unsettled.

Every so often, I would make art. I would notice that when I was making art, time would disappear. I felt alive and filled with joy. The intensity of my thought process and the depth of my involvement created what some would call a bliss state. I would complete my art piece and like what I’d done. Then I would start to worry that I would never make anything as good as what I’d just created. And I’d shut down, thinking “What if I never have another good idea?”

I was convinced that I wouldn’t do well if I studied art. I couldn’t draw very well and didn’t understand that drawing is a skill I could learn.

I dabbled in various things through my 20s, 30s and 40s, avoiding my creativity more than embracing it.

And I lived in a state of chronic, sometimes incapacitating depression. My therapist would ask me regularly “Are you doing your artwork?” and I’d say no, and he would say, “You must. It’s so important.”

By the time I was 50, I’d suffered a terrible bout of depression. I lost my Dad, ended a relationship, and had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I wondered whether being alive was even worth it. I was working with a therapist who kept suggesting that I consider going back to school. That felt impossible to me.

I started volunteering at my town’s LGBTQ community center. I asked for an assignment that would allow me to work independently. I was taught to maintain the center’s website, which was designed in WordPress. I fell in love with the work. I learned how to write code. It satisfied my eye for detail. I started to think that maybe I could start a business making simple websites. And add my love of graphic design.

I taught myself hungrily, day and night; took some classes; and hired a friend to teach me how to use design software.

It was time. I owed it to myself to take a chance. To do what I knew I wanted to do when I was eight.

I knew that if I didn’t take the chance, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.

In just two years, I’ve built a successful business. I have a team of colleagues working with me. I wake up every morning with a smile on my face. I’m at my desk working by 6:15. Not because I have to be but because I just want to. I love what I do. My work has become play.

I don’t have to hold on to my artwork anymore. Now that I’m exercising my art “muscles” I see that the more I create, the more I grow, and instead of running out of ideas, the ideas flow. I’ve given myself permission to thrive, and I’m not afraid anymore.

Once in a while I feel sad that it took me so long to figure all of this out. My very wise brother said to me, “Don’t be sad, just say to yourself, I got here as soon as I could, and be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

Recently I was at the Brooklyn Museum and was speaking with an intern. I told him about the contest and how my painting had been displayed and that I’d never seen it again. He directed me to the archives on the museum’s website. And there it was! Not the painting itself, but the information about the collection with photographs from the exhibit. My painting is tucked away in the archives at the Brooklyn Museum. I don’t need to see it. Just knowing where it lives is enough.

nantepperdesign.com

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