I’m always fascinated how people’s careers evolve, as my own didn’t take the path I’d planned when I headed to college. Instead of the teacher I set out to be, through a set of opportunities and being-in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time, I ended up an advertising copywriter, and then a journalist. The one common thread throughout this turn of events was an innate ability to write, and a love of crafting things with words.
The one secretarial job I held briefly between copywriting and journalism – where I wasn’t even allowed to fix the grammar in my boss’s letters – left me feeling like a plant in a closet – stifled and prevented from flourishing.
My own experience gave me a sense of kinship with feature subject Wilma Parker when we spoke about her path from Springfield to the City by the Bay. I understand the need to pursue your passion, and admire anyone who can turn that drive into a career.
Parker’s passion for art was something that she felt was in her blood.
She talked to me about her family’s history as silversmiths and her father’s artistic talent that went beyond his work as an architect. She recalled to me her father taking her with him on a mural project at the Baptist Church that stands near the singing bridge in Chicopee.
“On Saturdays I went with him to help with the murals,” she said, joking that she might have been a tag-along just to give her mother a break, as she had a younger sibling. “He explained the importance of what he was doing, and how to help with the paints. At age three I can remember they had a Sunday school with bright colored chairs and I tried to decide what was the prettiest color. A lady came down and wanted to play with me and I remember thinking‘ how can I let her know I’m working [for my dad] and still be polite?’”
It was clear that early experience left an impression about the importance of an artist’s dedication to his or her craft, a dedication she employed in carving out a career as a Navy artist and chronicling the history of a famed Naval Air Base in the painting – and poster – highlighted in this month’s cover story.
I felt a connection too, to columnist G Michael Dobbs’ piece this month about sifting through boxes of photos, trying to piece together family history. Like him, my mother inherited boxes of photos, and one lovely, velvet- covered album, from different sides of the family. There are people she – and sometimes my sister and I – remember, and others that remain a mystery. Now it’s a race to chronicle what we can before those connections, too, are lost. How many other families have faced the same task....
As always, thanks for reading,
