Thank you for 30
This has really been the best 30 years of my life. Really.
In 1988, I embarked on a rather terrifying journey: to leave my very first art director job for a growing marketing consulting firm, and to push my canoe out into the uncharted waters of freelance design work. If you have ever seen me get into a canoe, it is shaky at best, and scary for the onlookers; scary for me. That’s how it was in 1988.
That first company I had been working for was called Center for Organization Development, today renamed Fusion Productions. I started working there part-time in my senior year at RIT, and when I went to interview for the job, with my portfolio tucked under my arm, and no experience in my field, whatsoever, I am sure I looked like the risk that I was. It wasn’t even in vogue, yet, to hire people with disabilities in 1983. The ADA wouldn’t even come around for another 7 years. To this day, I credit my first interviewer, who would become my boss – Donna Thompson – with launching the career of a naive, scared-but-trying-to-be-brave disabled female. Back then, I was not part of any protected class! She didn’t have to take that chance, but then I was determined that she would not regret it. Thanks, Donna!
Five years later, I was ready to get into that canoe. That tippy freelance canoe. I opened my first DBA late in 1988, C. Jean Powell Design, and worked out of my apartment at 155 East Broad Street in Rochester. I had graduated from RIT in 1984, as a traditional t-square, drafting table and mechanical board artist; but by 1989 the computer was rapidly taking over as the tool of the trade, and I had to quickly re-train myself. I had a wonderful client: Professional Development Group, headed up by Ken Rabinowitz and Lori Drescher, who gave me a key to their offices, and let me come in at 5pm til whenever every night. In exchange for some design work, they gave me access to their little desktop computer, and Quark Express, where I began to learn everything I know now about design in the digital age. They really did secure my future. Thank you!
Through a marriage and a divorce, and another marriage, my freelance work held steady. I had some lean years, but the year before my twin boys were born, 1995, I earned more money than I ever had before in one year, and more money than I ever have since!
Several times I went back to work in full-time capacities. The Regional Center for Independent Living, and the Center for Disability Rights let me do what I loved, in working in disability civil rights. Somewhere along the line, I realized I loved working with youth, and helping to bring their voices to the forefront in communications. My current job at Villa of Hope is probably my calling.
And still, over the years, the free-lance work flowed. It was a wild trek. C. Jean Powell Design, then C. Jean Penner Design, and then Grover Web and Design … it was sometimes bonus income when I was working fulltime; and when I had my boys, then adopted my middle daughter, and gave birth to my youngest, it was the work that kept me in the game while I was home with kids. It was the best of both worlds.
This freelance gig has, in many ways, been my answer to discrimination. I have tasted discrimination based on disability, based on gender, more times than I care to remember; but I was in charge, and if necessary, I was able to leave with my head held high. Onward and upward!
I have had great clients, and I’ve had clients I wish I had never met. Have you ever had one of those? Of course you have; let’s be real! I’ve had clients that I completed one project for. And then there were the clients that were with me the whole way: Tom Bowers, Nanette Levin, and Bob Remis (and later Denise Bellavia) of Creative Themes. Nearly 30 years for all of you. A million thanks!
To all of my clients: thanks for steadying my canoe, and making sure the wind was at my back. And sometimes baling out water.
I am so looking forward to thirty more years!
Tom, thank you so much, and right back at you! You’re a loyal client but a genuinely good person as well, which comes across in your writing! One of those clients I was thankful to have collaborated with!!
It is I who is most blest to have discovered you, Jean! Your creative talents and willingness to dive into any project is remarkable. I remember our many meetings around your kitchen table, when we had not a clue where to begin with the project at hand. We were always in separate canoes but we have always paddled together. I loved when we laughed! I especially love your infectious smile! You were a God send to me in those early days of self employment. And your quiet confident encouragement allowed both of us to press on! I will always remember you not as a supplier nor I as your client, but both great friends and fellow confidants. You are terrific!
Lori, I totally did not remember the fire drill until you mentioned it . . . what a great memory! I remember you as one of my most important contacts after I left that first job, who got me in at your new place, made the intros, paved the way . . . all of those meetings at your home. I remembering your son learning to crawl around the kitchen while we were meeting! Thank you so much!
As I read your inaugural blog I teared up thinking about your history – as an artist, as a mother and wife, as an entrepreneur, and as a trailblazer and role model for other entrepreneurial women with disabilities. I am blessed to have been part of your story and equally blessed to have you be a part of mine. I still remember the woman I first met on my first job out of college – when she was carried down 17 flights of stairs during a fire drill in the “Manny Hanny building downtown. My memory was not of a disabled woman. But of a courageous and talented artist who meant the world to her co-workers. I couldn’t imagine who in my life would have carried me down 17 flights of stairs. For you they took numbers. Here’s to the next 30 my friend.
Thanks, Betsy! Time flies … that was so long ago!! Every minute is a gift though, isn’t it?
Thanks, Ann! Hope to see you soon!
Thanks, Nanette; next year will be your year!!
Yes I think I was always interested in graphic design, even before I knew what it was, and even before it was a term! Thanks for posting, “S”!
Hey Jean, congratulations! 😊
Won’t use your “other name” here… lol!
I believe your logos all go back to art class at FHS when we had to use our initials to design a logo, correct?
Anyway, you’ve done and continue to do quite a job
Deb F
Congratulations on 30 years, Jean! It’s been a wonderful journey together. Not all those years though – guess I’m younger than you at 29 ;-). You’re a gem I’m so grateful to have met early on in my “entrepreneurial” career and one I continue to value today.
I’m so very proud of you! I’ve admired your talent since we were young girls, and I was lucky enough to inherit a remarkable pencil sketch of yours of our grandfather. 🙂
Thrills me to hear you have found your calling at your current job… your accomplishments are many.
Here’s to the next decade, two or three!