8: Do Not Be Afraid In January 2020, I left behind full-time art to begin nine months of Americorps

8: Do Not Be Afraid

In January 2020, I left behind full-time art to begin nine months of Americorps service with Virginia State Parks. It was everything missing from my art career–outside every day, working hard with people on physical projects, and learning NEW skills (prescribed burning, trail building, invasives management, chainsaws, etc). I was in a new environment and completely out of my element, and I absolutely loved it.
Then March happened.
I had maintained a few clients while doing Americorps, but almost all of them dissipated when the pandemic hit. Our travel between parks was shut down, but as the nature of our work was outdoors and spread out, we were able to continue without interruption–a blessing I know was not common for pandemic-impacted jobs. Suddenly everyone BUT me was working at home, alone, indoors all the time. I got to keep working outside, wandering through the woods in search of autumn olive, in hollering distance from my coworkers. I thought to myself how lucky I had been. I thought also about how unlucky others had been.
The end of the year brought little respite, though I really, really enjoyed my time with Virginia State Parks and finished my Americorps service successfully. I didn’t really want to do a cutesy bird Christmas card–it seemed tone-deaf and trite. I almost decided not to do one at all, especially since I was still not enjoying drawing.
And I didn’t intend for this to be a Christmas card. I was doodling while thinking about Advent, and the woodcut art on the church bulletins of my childhood, and fear of the future, and Biblical angels, and, as usual, birds. It wasn’t until I was done that I thought about sharing it. It was the first thing in about a year that came easily–almost like it drew itself.
I’ll end with what I wrote when I originally posted it to Patreon: “This is a… weird holiday card. 2020 was a weird year. I am uncertain about what is to come. But there are many stories in human history, across our millions of years years as a species, about the unknown–and we always manage to meet it. And sometimes it is unexpectedly good.”

#hope #advent #future #merrychristmas #happyholidays #biblicalangel
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