Yes Virginia, There is a Universe

/ Susan Scrupski / 3 Comments

paintingIt was the strangest thing.

I was walking downtown in Orlando to present to a local Meetup of Data Scientists about Big Mountain Data. I had just arrived in Florida two months before from Texas.

It was early evening, and I was running late. As I briskly walked past an art gallery, I glanced to my left and there she was: “The Girl.”

I literally felt the image pull me toward her.

I “saw” her.

It stopped me in my tracks. I thought to myself, “This is the woman I’m working for.”

That night I even mentioned it on Facebook. The experienced stayed with me.

I was thinking about this piece of art this week, as Big Mountain Data is turning a corner in 2017.  The past two years have been rewarding, and I’m more hopeful than ever that we are on the brink of creating something truly meaningful.  My mind drifted to this piece of art.  When I saw it in the gallery, she had a hefty price tag, but I was thinking I might be able to afford this in 2017 somehow.

So, yesterday, I started doing some image searches from the photo I had posted  on Facebook.  I found the artist, and discovered she was a local.  She had a Facebook page, so I inquired if the piece was still available.  An assistant replied within minutes, and said she’d check.  The artist, Pamela Loudon, responded to me herself with an affirmative and asked me to contact her about it.

I thought about it and decided to tell her the odd story about how the piece “spoke” to me that night in downtown Orlando.  I told her what I do, and that I felt a strong connection to this work:

“I saw your piece walking past an Orlando gallery downtown. It was the evening of April 23, 2015. I was on my way to present to the Orlando Data Science Meet-up (a group of nerdy developers and data scientists). The artwork stuck with me.  It is something about the way the woman is fractured, kind of has a black eye, yet is surrounded with vivid color.  I felt a connection to the piece in a way I had never had a connection to a piece of art.”

Pam called me within moments of reading my email.  She had just returned from being out of the country for many months.

She said, “This is very strange.” She told me the history about this particular piece. That she was walking up a hill in Marseille, France and “The Girl” was pasted in burlap to a wall and a group of men were tearing her down.  She was moved by the work and told the men to STOP.  She pieced her together in her studio and started applying color.  She told me she felt this woman represented all women who are “torn off the wall by men.”

Long story short, as a traveling photographer and digital artist, Pam has visited places and witnessed events (including Nicole Simpson’s house in Brentwood) where women were abused horribly.  She told me that this piece was her first experience of how “spirited stuff” can find its way into art.

I always tell people that bizarre events happen all the time for me since I’ve been working on Big Mountain Data.  Coincidences and things that cannot be rationally explained.  Pam said, “You have to be open to the universe.”

I told her, I am.  I am.

The good news is she agreed to sell me the artwork at a price and payment plan I can afford.  She is happy “The Girl” is going to someone who truly appreciates her and will use her eery power in a way that will empower women everywhere.

Thank you Pam, and you out there in the cosmos working for us.

United We Stand

/ Susan Scrupski / Leave a comment

harlem

My daughter stood in a long line this morning to vote at her West Harlem neighborhood polling booth. She said she was tearing up, as she started texting me and sending me photos.  This little girl said to her: “I’m voting for my family.”  Her Mom told her, “That’s what we’re doing here, voting for our family, for sure.”

My daughter said she expected to wait at least an hour in line to vote, but “all these New Yorkers are, like, smiling at each other.”

She’s voting for my family.  And for our future.  I remember a favorite song of my sister’s during the heyday of her generation.  It was by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young: AmieTeach Your Children.  I’ve taught my children well.  They all voted this year for American values and principles deeply held.

You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good-bye.
Teach your children well,

#WeAreWithHer

 

The Other

/ Susan Scrupski / Leave a comment
stockton '77

Stockton State College, 1977

Today, I remembered what it felt like to be an “other.”

In 1977, I was awarded a full scholarship to attend college because I qualified as an “economically disadvantaged” student. It was a special program in New Jersey that still exists today called, “The Educational Opportunity Fund (EOF).”

There was a catch though.

You had to be willing to be treated like a second-class citizen.

Each school had the freedom to run its EOF program however the administration felt it would yield the best results.  At Stockton, where I was admitted, we had to attend a special pre-admission summer session to assess whether we were “fit” for college. After all, the students in the program were all, you know, low-income.

We had to check into the dorms immediately after we graduated high school. Every morning at 6 a.m., we had to get up, boot camp style, and run a mile around the lake on the school’s campus. It was mandatory.

Next, it was a mad dash from the breakfast hall to all-day classes in remedial English and sMath, breaking only for a quick lunch.  There were grad school tutors who could smartsplain anything our low-achieving, yet promising, young minds couldn’t absorb. After classes, it was dinner, homework, and lights out. The program was regimented from morning to night.  If you didn’t conform, you forfeited your scholarship.

Naturally, as a somewhat oppressed club, we banded together and became known as a group of “the other” around campus.

There were always looks and sneers from the other summer students, as the group noticeably stuck out as mixed race, on a predominantly white suburban campus. We were branded “EOF students” and all of us knew what that meant.  Lesser than. Special, but not in a good way.  In a demeaning way.

I hated that feeling. I couldn’t wait to get on with my education, rise above my station in life, and shed my “other” skin in the dustbin of the Pine Barrens.

Today I was reminded of how it felt.  And it had to do with something as innocuous as Uber, the car-sharing service.  I’ll explain that in another post.  But, what I learned from this uncomfortable experience today is how effortlessly, because of the color of my skin, I was afforded easy social mobility once I got into the workforce.

I have no idea how many of my friends in that summer EOF program ever did finish college (I didn’t), or where they are today.  But, I am sure that the POC had a harder time than I did. That, regardless of their stature, education, accomplishments, and strong families, they’ve been “the other” all their lives with no escape. It’s shameful I’m just seeing them now in my rearview mirror, today in 2016.

And it’s simply because someone made me feel bad about myself today.

Black lives matter.  I’m getting it.  Really getting it.