Creative Trauma: Patriarchy Within the Workplace
I graduated from college in May of 2009. Our country was still in the process of stabilizing itself after the devastating market crash in 2008. I had student loans to pay off, so finding a job was my first priority. And there were not a lot of them to choose from.
I took the first job that I was offered. Even though it was a student position, had zero benefits, and paid me $10/hr. I didn’t care, it was a job and it helped pay my bills.
And it was a great job, apart from the lack of benefits and terrible pay. I spent my days cataloging original artwork for the Review and Herald Publishing Association (may it rest in peace). I was getting to photograph all the artwork that many of us remember from The Bible Stories, Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories, My Bible Friends, and all the other books and magazines that we had grown up reading.
When I started working there, the art vault was in serious disarray. There were original paintings inside the vault and then there were filing cabinets along the outside of the vault stuffed with original illustrations and photographs. Which kinda defeated the purpose of having a fireproof vault in the first place. Whatever system had been in place decades before had dissolved into absolute chaos. I spent the next 6 months figuring out a system that would not only organize the artwork, but preserve the original pieces.
By using non acidic paper (compliments of those lovey end rolls from the press room) and a black and white printer from the 1990s. I got to work photographing, repapering, labeling and storing the artwork in the vault.
Due to the amount of mildew and other unsightly particles I was coming into contact with. I asked my boss if we could get an air purifier. At first, he was reluctant of the additional cost, but after spending an afternoon in the art library as we cleared out the vault. He agreed that it was a much needed expense.
I found working in the art library to be fascinating. Always interested in art history, I enjoyed looking up the various artists and learning more about the illustrators that filled our books with color. For example, Harry Anderson was allergic to turpentine (which is used to clean your brushes after painting with oil based paint) and as a result had to use acrylic paint for his illustrations.
After about a year in the art library, I realized that I didn’t want to catalog art forever. And started taking graphic design classes at Hagerstown Community College. That was one of the major drawbacks of my BFA in Fine Arts. The course requirements had been designed to prepare undergraduate Fine Art majors for the next step in the process—getting their masters degree. Unfortunately, the course requirements had been written in like the 1970’s and were out of date.
We needed a graphic design minor that was tailored to our needs as Fine Artists. Gone were the days of slides for portfolios. We needed to know how to make websites and get our portfolios online. We also needed to know how to digitalize our artwork so that we could land freelance jobs as illustrators. Which would allow us to pay for graduate school. Because those art schools aren’t cheap.
But that wasn’t an option for my group that went through. We had to minor in graphic design, but it wasn’t part of our requirements. By the time many of us realized that it would be a good idea to have a minor in graphic design, it was much too late to get those courses in before graduation.
And so, I worked full time, went to school part time, and taught high school art (for a semester). I figured that if I was going to be paid a student wage, might as well attend school.
The next part is hard to write about. I still get angry, because that trauma is still there. No matter how many times I revisit it. No matter how many times I write about it. The anger remembers how the scar was formed. My church still treats women as being inferior to men. Patriarchy within the Adventist Church is still flourishing and it shouldn't be. People should be able to tell that we are Christians by how we treat women and minorities. Instead of by how we oppress them.
In 2010, the Review and Herald went through mass layoffs. I remember sitting in the art library with my coworkers listening to the eerie quiet. In the afternoon, we adventured out and saw the extent of the layoffs. The entire design team was gutted. Other departments were left scrambling to find people to do the jobs that were deemed "unnecessary" or "easy to do" by those making the decisions. My boss was moved to a different department and I found myself forgotten in the art library. I learned pretty quickly that being useful made a difference. I found myself in lots of different departments over the next few months. I helped with proofreading in editorial, entering corrections for the design, and every few weeks I took my turn as the in-house mail person. I continued with my classes and focused on my goal of becoming a designer.
Eventually my work paid off and I became a desktop technician in the design department. I was supposed to get a pay raise and benefits. But it took almost a year for that to actually happen. By then I was a junior designer, I was able to design magazines, book covers, and flowed in interiors with ease. My new boss and the ladies in HR pushed hard for the raise and benefits. They fought back when the committee approved a small raise, but not the benefits. The committee claimed that I was a temporary worker. A step up from a student worker, but not good enough for anything more. It was infuriating, but common practice.
I had worked hard to get that job. And it was frustrating to have to continue to prove that I deserved the raise and benefits. Even though, at the time, my new office was a closet and the rumor mill was spewing lies about how I got the job. I was still a member of the design team and my co-workers were awesome. They were the best mentors that I could have had and I learned so much from them. They valued me, even if others did not.
I loved designing book covers. They reminded me so much of laying out a painting on canvas. Here are some of the covers I designed over the years that I worked at the Review and Herald Publishing Association.
There were definitely things about working for the Review and Herald that I am glad happened. Good memories were made. Good growth happened. The people that I met. The illustrators I got to work with. The books I got to read while I designed them. Those are all things that I look back on with happiness in my heart.
But there are also things that happened that have broken me. And it is difficult to look back without seeing those things too. Because while I was working at the Review and Herald, I was also unpacking the baggage collected from 17 years of Adventist Education. My counselor was amazing and over the course of the next 5 years we cleaned house. I was a follower no longer. I kicked my emotionally abusive boyfriend to the curb, learned how to make healthy boundaries for myself, achieved my goal of becoming a graphic designer, celebrated my first apartment, and found that I was happy with who I had become.
But working for the church was not easy. There is still so, so much trauma that I am having to work through and heal from. And I feel like what I wrote in 2015, says it best:
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Pieces
January 20, 2015
My last day on the job was October 13, 2014.
And there are days when I feel like I'm still picking up the pieces.
Have you ever worked somewhere that was run by a bunch of hypocrites?
Crisp business suits. Specific job descriptions. And the inability to sincerely thank those making them look good. You are never good enough. And you are told so every time you don't meet their unrealistic expectations. And to make it even better, you work for the church.
It will destroy you, from the inside out.
Each little word.
Each little reminder that you aren't good enough.
Each tiny mistake enlarged for all to see.
And you try. You try so hard not to let it get to you. You try to have that "tougher shell" that those who inflict the pain insist you need to have to survive. Except it doesn't work.
Because you are a sponge. You take in your surroundings. You put your heart and soul into what you create. So when your superiors find fault with your work—it hurts. But if they just critiqued your work without making it personal—you would be tough enough.
And because you are a woman, you are continually passed over for raises.
Because you are a woman you are shamed in meetings.
Because you are a woman, if you do stand up for yourself—
you'll wish by the end of the day that you hadn't.
In college I chose art as a career. There weren't many girls in that career path when I was in college. Which made it a delightful challenge that many of us embraced. Looking back if I knew what I know now—would I have still chosen that career?
Quite likely.
The work loads got bigger, and those left to keep things running began to crack under the pressure. The church politics loomed over our heads and things became less business and more personal. It became a game of survival—church style.
Each little word would end up cutting a little deeper—a bit more personal.
Each little reminder would cost you a bit more of your soul.
Each tiny mistake would be used as blackmail—until you yourself began to doubt your abilities.
And those are the pieces I'm sifting through.
Which words were a product of a bad day.
Which reminders had more to do with church politics and less to do with the job.
Which tiny mistakes were just a reason to get even.
There are a lot of pieces. I worked there for five years.
It will likely take awhile to sort through them all.
The pieces that were a product of a bad day are easy.
You just toss them out and forget about them.
The pieces that dealt with church politics are more difficult.
You can't just toss them out. As much as I wish you could, you can't.
Each piece contains too much of your soul. It may take weeks, months,
or even years before you can remove one piece from the pile.
The pieces that were used as blackmail revenge are both difficult and easy.
The use of blackmail worked when status actually mattered.
And now that it doesn't, you can be cheerful around them without being thrown
under a bus for mistakes that weren't your own. And the best part is—it annoys them.
At which point you pitch the pieces. They weren't worth keeping anyway.
The healing process is still in progress. Five years is a long time. But maybe when I am done with the sorting, the pile will look more like Pavement Fractals, by Cynthia Fisher.
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It has now been 10 years since I received my pink slip. And I'm still working through that pile of broken shards. Because each year, new church related trauma is added. New experiences have a way of triggering old traumas. It is a cycle. But I am learning to thrive through the trauma.
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