The Sisters
Family Powering Through
A weird thing, to learn you almost weren’t born. I was asked recently how I came to be an artist and how I can still possibly be creating art. I’ll start with the sisters.
This striking photo of six Ryan sisters was taken on the west side of Chicago, about 1905. These are the great aunts. One died as a toddler and three out of the six became Chicago public school teachers. They taught without pay throughout the depression. Without warning, their father abandoned the family and my great grandmother Papa Ryan learned to move on and not look back.
As if those hardships weren’t enough, the three school teachers were not allowed to marry. Seriously. You want to teach? Sorry, no kids of your own. Left side, middle was my grandmother Marion. She escaped school teacher-hood and went on to have my mother, who then had three children, with me stuck in the middle. Marion smoked Old Gold Straights, loved Jack Daniels and had a boyfriend, Harry, in her 80’s.
None of these strong, underpaid, overworked and stifled women were artists. What they learned, however, without a man in the house, was how to depend on each other and survive. They respected and adored the arts, literature and culture. They collected fancy dinnerware that no one uses anymore. They loved fragile teacups and their piano. They lived together on Austin Ave. in Chicago until they died.
Like many women of her time, my mother could never let go of thinking the next Great Depression was just around the corner. A widow with three young kids, she also became a teacher and instilled in us the concept that we could be artists, communicators and writers.
Every drawing I ever did, my mother thought it was incredible. Every chance we could get, she took us to a day at the Art Institute, the theatre, the Cubs games. Osmosis helped me realize that art was respectable, interesting and career-worthy. It brought peace, flow and joy. It became the one thing I most wanted to do.
It was pure luck Marion didn’t want to teach, and pure luck mom gave me a sister I could fight over pencils with. And the purest luck of all was that I found something that would provide a lifetime of creativity and peace while either educating people or bringing them joy, though it took me quite a painful while to realize I didn’t need a corner office, a title and lots of money to be happy. Just crayons.