How Does She Do It?

How Does She: Train for Elite Triathlon Competitions While Managing a Demanding Job and Sustaining a Nurturing Marriage?

Karin Gardner hadn’t gone to the Danskin this year with the goal of competing, it was more just to keep her streak alive.  But there she was, climbing out of the water in first place, transitioning to the bike and riding first behind the pace motorcycle.  She made it all the way through the turn-around and almost to the start of the run before she was passed – by the pro would go on to win the whole thing.

 

Yes, the run.  The three mile stretch of pain to a knee that had kept her out of other competitions that year.  “But the red ribbon doesn’t walk”, she thought to herself.  Karin bore down and crossed the finish line in 6^th place.  Not bad for someone who wasn’t training.

 
Karin – the 1^st out of the water in the 2009 Danskin Triathlon

Not that she didn’t want to be.  Earlier that year she faced the supreme disappointment of stepping down from her second Ironman attempt.  She was going to do it that summer with a group of other women friends many, like her, “aging up” – being the youngest age in a category and therefore owning the best shot at placing well.  For Karin Gardner, it wasn’t just any bump up the age scale – this one was the big 4 – 0.  Forty years old and ready to avenge her disappointment from 2005.

 

That was the Ironman Canada, a race for which she had trained on average 20 hours each week.  A half-time job added to her already time and a half position as Communications Manager for the Oppenheimer Group (international marketers of fresh produce). 

 

She started the race that morning – a 2.4 mile open water swim in Lake Okanagan, followed by 112-miles of biking up and down hills, ending with a full 26.2 mile marathon run – with a goal to finish strong and possibly to eke out a coveted slot in the World Championship Ironman race in Kona, Hawaii. 

 

The swim ended well, as most do for Karin, who came to the sport of triathlon as a swimmer.  There were volunteers on the beach to help her and the other racers out of their wetsuits – the full rock star treatment.  On to her bike with an adrenalin rush until at mile 16, within a pack of riders, she heard the awful sound of a puncture and looked around to see which poor soul had been struck. 

 

It was her tire, losing air fast. 

 

She pulled over to fix the flat and found, of all things, a tack poking through.  After the repair, she was back on the bike, hoping to gain back some time, when she heard that dreaded sound again.  Another tack.  All those bikes with all those tires she got nailed, twice.  Seeing her Hawaii goal disappear before her, she took on this repair with extra speed, and in the process ended up pinching her tube and blowing out her last spare.  None of the equipment cars that passed had her particular size tube, so with one hand on her wounded bike, she walked the next three miles in her bike cleats to the water station, where she finally found a replacement tube.

 

By now, her goal had shifted from Kona to finishing in daylight.  She biked hard, finding small relief in counting the racers she passed, stopping only when she reached 1,000.  She figured the prank someone played of throwing tacks onto the roadway cost her an hour and twenty minutes, not to mention the aspiration of a year of training.

2009 was going to be the year to avenge that experience.  But then came the knee problem that no one, not the best specialists in Seattle, has been able to diagnose or provide remedy for.  Rest.  That’s all she has been able to do for it.  With the exception of the Danskin Triathlon, and a sixth-place finish.

 

You could imagine that by this time in the interview, Karin’s face would be flush with anger or tears, but no.  Curled up comfortably in her arm chair, fingers wrapped around a coffee mug, Karin calmly drew a picture of the silver lining hidden in those clouds of frustration.

 

“This was the year to focus on swimming.”

 

Unable to run, she entered the La Jolla Rough Water swim – a three-mile race that, with 2000 entrants, bills itself as the largest rough water swim in the U.S. Despite the fact that she couldn’t train in the open ocean in Seattle, she finished in 8^th place.  In the 2009 Emerald City Open Water swim, where the serious swimmers compete, Karin placed 3^rd in her age group.

 

All those morning rising by 5 a.m. to be in Lake Washington or the Mercer Island pool clearly paid off.

 

During our conversation, Karin used the word “spiritual” on more than one occasion.  There is a zen-like calmness in her descriptions of early morning lake swims – a “bliss and communion with the water” as she describes in her own blog.  Terms that seem in juxtaposition with the flailing of arms and legs when the gun goes off and the hundreds that were vertical at once become horizontal, and waterbound.  But the photos she shares with me all convey an inner stillness that matches her outward persona.  Competition seems to be a glue that brings the parts together.

 

Karin leaves no doubt that her most important asset in her endeavors is Mike, her husband, “my rock and my rudder.  I cannot tell you adequately how important it is to have my best friend nurture my competitive nature and let me off the hook for a more normal life.” 

They work at finding the time to be together despite Karin’s demanding schedule.  She does her morning swim before he wakes up, he’s there on the sidelines cheering her through her races, and every now and then, they put the training aside and enjoy a vacation together.  Fortunately, Mike grew up around the sport of triathlon – his father competed for years and he himself has entered a number of races himself -- so he understands better than most what drives her.

 

“I think of the book – 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where it talks about organizing life demands in four quadrants.  I try to focus on what lives in that quadrant of both urgent and important.  Often that’s work or training, but sometimes what’s in that box is five chapters of Twilight on the couch.”

 

When I asked her what doesn’t make it in the box, she responds somewhat wistfully, “being a good cook” (Mike wears the apron in the house), “more time, and being good at everyday things,” like sending birthday cards and gardening.

 

But before that can happen, there’s a knee to mend fully and more races to contemplate.  She’s looking at 2011 for another shot at an Ironman race.  Let’s hope the roads are clear for her that day.

 

Karin’s (not so) secrets for how she does it:

• find a like-minded community of athletes who understand, encourage and inspire you. 
• use training resources – Karin connects with www.weraisethebar.com through which you can hook up with training partners, follow coaching programs and learn the tools of the trade
• If you’re considering the Danskin Triathlon,
• Don’t miss the registration – start watching the web site in February.  Registration fills in just about a day;
• Practice swimming in the Lake.  It’s very different from the pool.  Feeling comfortable in open water will make race day much easier;
• Rent a wetsuit from Speedy Reedy and practice in it;
• The Lake Padden race near Bellingham is a great novice level race for practice;
• Just Do It

 

What book has Karin read recently?

• The Young Woman and the Sea, How Gertrude Ederle Conquered the English Channel and Inspired the World,, by Glenn Stout
• Breaking Dawn, by Stephanie Meyer (Twilight Series)
• Super Freakonomics, by Steven Levitt

 

Whom does Karin want me to interview next?

• Livia – the Doyenne of swimming in Seattle.  She’s an older woman who is in the pool everyday, gamely putting in her laps and telling stories to any who will listen in the sauna afterwards;
• Her friend Meaghan, who is parenting an autistic child while managing all of the rest of life with grace.

How Does She: Raise 4 Children as a Single Mom and Full-Time Student at the University of Washington?

The first time I met Najah Hull she was checking in for her volunteer shift at the elementary school our children attend.  Right away I was taken with her warm smile and calm composure. 

 

It was later that I learned she has a Superwoman tattoo on the back of her neck.

 

A tattoo that all of us would agree is merited.  Consider this.  That warm smile was offered by a woman with four kids under the age of 8 whom she is now raising as a single mom. 

 

Najah Hull

 

And with her spare time?  She’s enrolled full-time at the University of Washington, working to finish the degree she abandoned when her first child came along.  As part of her studies, she’s doing an internship at the Juvenile Justice Center, tutoring incarcerated youth.  Oh yeah, don’t forget, she volunteers at our kids’ school. 

 

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?  That if you or I were in the same situation the strain would be oozing from every pore, through the split ends of our frazzled hair to the nervous tic we couldn’t control?

 

“I think women in general are strong.  Like Tim Gunn says on Project Runway – ‘Make it work!’  That’s the kind of mindset I’ve got.”

 

How Does She Do It?  First and repeatedly thereafter, Najah credits her survival to “the Grace of God.”  She was raised with the Church a constant presence in her life, attending with her family every Tuesday, Friday and Sunday when she was growing up, and her faith continues to sustain her. 

 

Najah speaks of her life and her choices with a straightforwardness and candor, as if she has enough on her plate already without adding the burden of doubt.  Once on the long list of other responsibilities she carries, doubt got checked off a while back.  But not until she had spent years getting to the point where she could accept divorce as the best solution for her and her kids.

 

“I kept thinking, can I do this on my own?  How are my kids going to fare without their father?  I had to weigh what was most important for my children.  Are they better off in a home with two parents who are fussing at each other or living with just one parent and visiting the other?  It took a long time to figure out.”

 

And then there was the change to her identity – both the way she saw herself and how she feared others would see, and judge, her.  “That was one thing I was aware of when I filed for divorce – I’ve become a stereotype – the single Black mother.   I never wanted to become the stereotype.” 

 

Even before the divorce, Najah, knowing the toxic power of peoples’ pre-judgments, went to great lengths to make sure she didn’t get put in that box.  “When I was pregnant with my son I was in the hospital, and I made them wheel me downstairs to my parenting class.  I wore my wedding ring around my neck because my finger was too swollen, and I made sure to touch it every now and then to point it out.  I wanted everyone to know, ‘I’m not your stereotypical single Black mother.’

 

“And now, I still have things left over from when I was married.  Like, when I walk into the welfare office with my Coach bag, I want to say ‘That’s from my past.’ People may look at me and think I’m misappropriating funds, but this is left over from where I was before.  I work hard to prove that, (unlike the stereotype), I haven’t given up.  Going to school full-time, raising four children, volunteering for the community.  You can’t look at me and think, she’s doing nothing but living on welfare.”

 

And finally there was the Church.  Always the rock in her life, now she found it difficult to face the close community of people who couldn’t understand her decision.  “People at church, all they see is marriage, sticking with it.  Relying on the Grace of God to bring you through.  To them, my marriage looked great on the outside.  And for a long time I let others, my parents, my pastor, make the decision of whether I should stay or go, and that’s one of the regrets I have.  The decision you don’t make is always the one you’re going to regret.”

 

But it was also the Church that finally gave her relief.  She knew the verses from the Bible that admonished women to obey and stay committed to their husbands.  But she also knew the Bible laid down strict laws about infidelity.  Once she was certain this line had been crossed, her faith released her.  She let her husband take the first step and then readily agreed to divorce.

 

Then came the reality of her decision.  She had stopped working when her first was born, leaving the breadwinning responsibilities to her husband. She had no place to live, no means of income, and a college degree that was halfway complete.

 

She moved in with her parents and turned to social programs to support her family.  Then she applied to the University of Washington to see about finishing up what she started before the kids came.  At first the University offered to cover $5,000 of her expenses, but looking at a total bill of at least $25,000 she knew that wouldn’t be enough.  She appealed the decision, and the next offer was enough to cover all her expenses, including housing.

 

“I’m benefitting greatly from programs that support single parents.  I see it almost as a reward for all the effort I’m putting in.  I never would have anticipated that this would be how I would get my degree, but I’m grateful that things are being afforded to me so I can finish it.”

 

After leaving school with an AA from Bellevue College and one year at the University, Najah is now enrolled full time at UW, studying sociology, though she may change that major to social work.  “Sociology is more the theory, where social work is the practice.  I really want to help kids when they get out of juvenile detention to prevent recidivism.”

 

Her six and seven year-olds are in Kindergarten and first grade, sandwiched between before- and after-school care.  She has a four year-old at the EEU preschool program at UW (“where I can visit him when I’m on campus”), while the two year-old is in childcare near their home.

 

Najah’s four children

“Beyond the Grace of God, I could not do what I’m doing without my parents, friends and family” who help watch the kids and drive them to activities when Najah can’t.   “And my PDA – oh my God! – everything is all in here,” she says, extracting the device carefully and holding it as if it were an offering to the gods.

 

“I used to rely on my memory, but there’s too much now.  I leave myself reminders on Outlook and on my phone all the time.  Like this interview today.  I had just turned in my last paper for the quarter and thought I would go home and take a nap, but then I got the reminder that I promised to see you.”

 

Great – we’re keeping this woman from a much-deserved rest.  “But if my story is an inspiration to someone, I’m happy to tell it.”

 

Her 400-level courses are demanding, but Najah spends much more time in our interview talking about the demands of parenthood.

 

“There’s a lot that goes into being a decent parent.  It’s a hard job.  You’ve got to have lots self-determination.  I see other single parents who could be doing a whole lot better for their kids, but they’ve just thrown their hands up.  I couldn’t do that.  It takes a LOT of planning and it takes fighting for things the kids are entitled to.”

 

Always wanting to take on just one more thing or help in one more way, Najah is realizing that many things have to go.  Most of the activities she signed up to help with at school she has had to let slide.  And she has learned to let the housekeeping go so she can enjoy family time with the kids. 

 

“You have to make the best of your situation.  Everybody has to.  For me to think that I was going to be given a life with a silver spoon, no, that’s not my story.  I have to do the best with what I’ve got.”

 

Although she recognizes that her children are too young “to appreciate the magnitude of what I’m doing” she is confident that they will once they are older.  And by that time, she’ll have her degree.  “It’s an accomplishment, a milestone.  Something I can show to my kids.  After all, I didn’t accumulate all this student debt to not finish.”

 

One unfinished item on Najah’s plate is her relationship with her Church.  She hasn’t returned since she and her husband filed for divorce.  “Part of that derives from the scrutiny of people there.  I used to be married and now I’m divorced.  It’s almost like there’s a little bit of shame.  I don’t want to face that crowd and answer those questions.”  Her mother takes the children each Sunday and is now giving Najah the space to find the right time to return. 

 

“It’s not that I don’t believe the Bible anymore, but it’s kind of like I’m taking a break.  Every day I think I’ve got to get back to the life I used to have.  God knows I’m overwhelmed, I’m wandering.  But I know at any time I can go back and be forgiven, be made whole again. 

 

“I would hate to be in this position forever.  I want to become self-sufficient again.  I was very successful, before my marriage.  I shifted my reliance on to my husband.”

 

And now she’s on a path to get it back.  Checking off those responsibilities one at a time.  And all the while, smiling that beautiful smile.

 

Najah’s (not so) secrets for how she does it:

• Her PDA, which holds her life
• Friends, family, and teenage babysitters she met through church, all of whom love her kids and are willing to help out whenever Najah can’t do it all herself
• The Grace of God

 

 What book has Najah read recently?

• She hasn’t read much that wasn’t required for school, but she has The Purpose Driven Life, by Rick Warren on her bookshelf and would love to get to it some day.

 

Whom does Najah want me to interview next?

• Her Pastor’s wife, who “epitomizes femininity.  She has her hand in so many pots.  She is compassionate, soft spoken, and passionate about empowering women.”

 
 

How Does She: Bring clean water to the slums of Bangladesh while raising two young children in the richest country on earth?

 

Marla’s ‘family’ in Bangladesh

 

Twenty hours after leaving home, Marla Smith-Nilson and her colleagues pull into Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for the night.    With morning they’ll begin the two hour drive, grateful that a recent paving project has reduced its time from the six hours it used to take.  They’re headed to Bishikiltu, a 12-village district in Ethiopia that now has clean drinking water and household toilets, thanks to Marla and Water 1^st International, the organization she started in her basement four years ago. 

 

She’ll be welcomed by hundreds of villagers in the next week, treated like royalty, really.  She will visit several homes, small thatched roof dwellings that shelter adults, children and farm animals each night, whose walls and ceilings are black with the stain of innumerable cook fires.  At most there might be a chair inside and if there is, it will be cleared off and offered to Marla, “as if I were Oprah Winfrey.”

 

Marla is here on her annual visit, to make sure that the spring cap, storage tank, pipes and water points installed with funds she raised are providing clean water to all the villages, that those responsible for regular maintenance of the system have been doing their job, and that dues to pay for the system have been collected and accounted for.  In the span of a few months – the ones the rest of us will spend preparing for and celebrating the winter holidays – Marla will leave her family for weeks at a time to make similar trips to Bangladesh, Honduras, and India to make sure the investments made by Water 1^st are improving the lives there of women and their families.

 

The physical water system is only part of her work.  She’ll interview the villagers to make sure they are also learning basic hygiene techniques, such as hand washing and using the toilet (teaching them to keep the animals and their dung out of human living quarters is part of the advanced lesson).

 

Such personal information is not disclosed without the requisite period of relaxation, conversation, and often, the traditional coffee ceremony.  Marla will sit patiently on the occasional wooden chair but more frequently, clay slab bed, dispensing social niceties with the help of one or more translators before getting down to business.

 

On a recent visit, business included conducting a survey to learn how the recent availability of clean water has changed the lives of women there.  These women previously spent hours of every day, hiking to and from an often polluted water source, carrying up to six gallons, weighing about 50 pounds, with each trip.  (Author’s note here – I feel buff when I press a couple sets at 50 pounds while lying on my back.  These women, half my size, lift that weight and walk in plastic shoes over rough terrain for two to three miles.  Sort of puts things in perspective).

 

About 90% of these women are illiterate, so Marla conducts her interviews with the help of pictures – in this case, photos of villagers doing ten different activities, ranging from collecting water to plowing, cooking and preparing coffee.  Most of these women point to 9 or 10 of the pictures representing tasks they did the day previously.  Marla was not surprised that their husbands pointed to only three or four pictures, one of which, not in the women’s selection by the way, was social time, relaxation.

 

“The lives of these women are so vastly different from mine, but I can relate to this feeling of trying to keep all the balls in the air.”

 

Marla with her family in Seattle

 

But here’s the thing, if Marla were to list ten things she did in one day, how many of us could claim the same things? 

 

Like sharing a coffee ceremony in a thatched hut with Ethiopian women?  Or being showered with flowers upon entering the slums of Dhaka, Bangladesh?

 

There are other things on Marla’s list of activities that might be found on ours.  Picking the kids up from after-school care at the end of a day at the office, for instance.  Or unpacking boxes from when her family moved out of their Ballard home to turn it over to the remodelers for six months.

   

I asked Marla how she managed her life, as a sort of Janus, with one face pointing to play dates, kitchen finishes and school fundraisers while the other looked to the poorest of the poor, the ones who daily go without the most basic of needs.  The ones she holds in her heart as she sits in front of her office computer.

 

“I find myself judging people in the States.  I want to tell them, ‘You don’t appreciate what you have here’.  It can be hard getting people to be involved with people half a world away, whose situations are so hard simply because of where they were born.”

 

But she’s making great progress bringing the story here, even if it isn’t fast enough for her liking.  I was one of 700 people at the Convention Center recently to support Water 1^st, where together we raised half a million dollars to continue Marla’s work.  I saw then and urge you now to take a moment to see Marla and her organization at work.  You will be profoundly moved.

 

http://water1st.org/events/GWGL_2009_film.html

 

You’ll see in the video an Ethiopian woman who tells how she strapped her ill son to her back and walked four hours to the closest doctor.  The boy’s severe diarrhea, brought on by drinking tainted water, kept him in the hospital for five days.  His family had to sell their only livelihood, a donkey, to pay the medical bill.  And how, against every advice she had received about what to do when faced with such a story, Marla emptied her pockets of every bit of money she had – almost $50 – which for this family was more money than they would see in a year, and handed it over. 

 

Back in the states she feels this same challenge in a different way “how much is enough?  I want to understand:  what is my fair share?  I wish I knew, and there probably isn’t really an answer.  But I do feel that now that I have recognized my position in this world as a person, who by the sheer luck of my birth, has access to wealth and opportunity, I must show compassion –I must embrace my responsibility to do something about the gross inequities that exist.”

 

Marla is one of those people, I often think they are the blessed or the chosen, who have an experience in their youth that sets their course for a lifetime.  For Marla it was in middle school during a family vacation.  From the small Arizona town where they lived, her family drove a short distance across the border to vacation at a lake in Mexico.  While they spent their days boating, fishing and swimming on the lake, Marla noticed a girl about her age, coming each day to this same lake to collect water presumably to supply her family.   What was Marla’s recreation was this girl’s life.  And the arbitrary line, the US border, that separated their homes, set the path for two people to have vastly different lives.  She saw the injustice, but at the same time, she saw the possibility of solution. 

 

 

She went to the University of Arizona to earn a degree in civil engineering, figuring that the way to solve the problem of clean water was construction.  But during her travels around the globe she saw that the building of pumps and reservoirs was only half the challenge.  Other such projects were often found in ruin, ravaged for parts, dysfunctional shortly after being installed.  The key, she learned, was to build a community of investors, small dues payers who communally took responsibility for the operation and maintenance of any system that was installed.  And provide the education to go with it.

 

Marla is replicating that lesson in her work back in Seattle.  Educating us about the need and providing us the means to help address it.

 

Visit Water First at http://www.water1st.org/ or follow the trip Marla is taking to Bangladesh and India right now on Facebook and learn how you can support their work, whether with a cash contribution, purchase of a holiday gift, or drinking beer at their annual fundraiser “Water 1^st, Beer 2^nd”.

 

Marla’s (not so) secrets for how she does it:

• she’s another fan of internet and cell phone connections, though when she travels to remote corners of the world it’s hard to get either.  It’s usually too expensive to actually call, but when she gets back to her hotel room, she immediately checks to see if there is a message from her family.  No call is the signal that everything is fine.
• Marla realizes her ability to leave places an extra burden on her husband Jim to manage his job and their two kids for weeks at a time.  Looking at the two of them, it’s obvious they are in this work together.

What book has Marla read recently?

• The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters, by Rose George

From Publisher’s Weekly: “With irreverence and pungent detail, George breaks the embarrassed silence over the economic, political, social and environmental problems of human waste disposal.”  In short, the perfect holiday gift!

 

Whom does Marla want me to interview next?

• Her mind immediately moved to the amazing women she has met who are working in their home villages, but she’s giving thought to others who don’t require a malaria vaccine to visit.

There are some numbers Marla Smith-Nilson would like you to learn:

• 2.5 million people do not have access to clean drinking water or a toilet
• Everyday 5 million girls cannot attend school (because they spend their days carrying water for their families)
• Everyday 200 million women carry water (a load of 50 pounds carried 3 – 4 miles twice daily is not uncommon)
• Everyday 7000 children die (because they don’t have access to clean water and sanitation).

 

These are the numbers that keep Marla working, and traveling.  She is just returning from a trip to the slums of Bangladesh where the organization she started is replacing the hanging latrines that used to empty into the water source that people used for their everyday activities.

 

Marla tells How She Does It in this week’s post, coming Wednesday.  I hope you read it and take the time to view her film, a link to which is provided in the story.  And leave a comment when you’re done.

How Do You combine (or separate) your work/volunteer world from your home responsibilities?

Artist Gail Grinnell spoke about how she worked to include her family in the creation of her art. Do you strive to combine family and/or other home obligations (e.g. caring for an aging parent) with work, volunteer activity or artistic pursuit, or do you prefer to find ways to keep them separate? How do you do it?  Share your ideas and learn from others.

- Janet Pelz

 

A close-up of Gail’s work

Gail Grinnell: Carrying the Art of Women's Work from Farm to Family

My conversation with Gail Grinnell develops, layer upon layer, circling back to themes of caretaking, women’s work, relationships, love and loss, light and dark. We do not start with A and proceed methodically to Z. We spiral, adding to the conversation each time we re-touch a topic.

Layers is an appropriate term to use here, for Gail describes her art as rooted in them. “My work is a reference to how I feel about people and relationships in my life. There is a transparency and layering. It’s bringing disparate elements together.”

In physical form, her layers are made of dressmaking materials – elements “humble, simple, nothing too refined. I don’t labor under the illusion that my pieces will last any significant period of time. Life is temporal and so is my art.” The inspiration for her work is rooted in layers of memory, tradition, ritual and work.

On the eastern Washington farm where she grew up, “people were always making things. My mother’s seamstress business was always visible on the dining table.” While from earliest memory, she was always drawing or decorating in her own way, it took a while for her artistic impetus to bloom.

After becoming pregnant at age 17, she married the father like a good Catholic girl. The teenagers and their baby started life together, in a room of the motel owned by his father. Their early years together revolved around her husband’s preparation for the world of work, earning a degree from Eastern Washington University. Gail dabbled in a couple courses there but was terrified of the university setting. “It was out of everyone’s expectations for me to go to college. I was supposed to just be paying attention to my baby.”

It wasn’t until after another child at 23 and a second marriage with two more children that she pursued more formal instruction, earning a degree in painting from the University of Washington.

Immediately she recognized that painting as a medium didn’t make sense given where she was in life. “I had kids at home, I didn’t have the space or the money for those materials.” Though she drew heavily from her training, she deliberately turned from the tradition of fine art.

Instead, she focused on “the tradition of the everyday” using materials that draw from “the intergenerational memory” of women’s work. From her personal history of “having been a domestic my entire life, taking care of others” she found the impetus for her own artistic expression. “I wanted to express the value of caretaking. Wanted to leave a track back to that activity through my art.”

In the early days, she worked on her creations between diaper changings and parenting interruptions, her pieces often migrating from the spare bedroom she had designated as her work space to the kitchen table. Intertwining the kids and her work, she learned to include them in the making. From a young age, they would often participate by cutting or gluing.  Now adults, they helped put together some of the final touches on her piece currently on display at the Bellevue Arts Museum.

 
Lightly Here at night at the Bellevue Arts Museum

The piece, titled Lightly Here, is the marriage of line and drawing with the memory of women’s work, done by her and her mother and her mother’s mother, imbued in her own bones and evident in the bones of the piece.

She spent two months in Ballycastle, Ireland in 2008 doing an arts fellowship. To this remote destination all that she brought with her were bolts of interfacing fabric -- the primary media of her work, a gallon can of acrylic, and marking pens. No paints or other means of providing color. For inspiration she turned to memory of that most basic task of domestic work – the laundry. She felt the movement in her muscles of plunging the fabric into water, the twisting to release water, hanging to let the air do the rest. She thought of these movements and the actions that might follow when the laundry was done – drinking a cup of coffee at the kitchen table – and layered the two. Soon, she was dying the interfacing she brought into tubs filled with coffee or tea, the beverages adding not just subtle color but the richness of tradition to the materials.

Back in her Seattle studio she crafted the individual pieces used to construct her piece, the construction itself the last part of the creation. Like life, Gail’s work cannot be contained within a frame, but “has to respond to the space where it lives.

“You have to consider the volume of the space, and the light” – in this case both artificial from within the museum and external through the window. Even the movement of air as it circulates through the space and animates the art factors into the final design.

Not having many artistic instincts myself, I imagined my personal terror in choosing that first panel and each addition thereafter. But Gail harkens the construction of the piece to a drawing “each line changes the picture. In a real way, assembling the piece was like drawing in the space.”

The first time she constructed the piece she was not satisfied. “It looked like a sad white curtain, dusty and derelict.” The timing of the show hadn’t been great. Gail was being pulled in many directions, including final preparation for a show at the Francine Seders Gallery with her now grown son Sam, who had recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design. The scar on her hand, sliced open by a glass she was washing, is a reminder of how distracted she was at the time. After her life settled some she returned to the museum to re-hang, or re-draw the work to what it is today.

More than my other interviews thus far, Gail worked hard to be sure that all the words she used in answering questions were exactly the right ones. It became obvious that this is a person who demands of herself a precision of expression – she wants to be very clear about the statement she puts out. But at the same time, she’s thrilled when people bring their own references to its interpretation.

Almost giddy, she described comments she overheard from a young woman upon viewing her work. Although her words were very different from the ones Gail would use, it was clear that this stranger found something within Gail’s art that spoke to her own experience. That’s what Gail strives to find – some image or reference that has layers of commonality even across uncommon backgrounds.

To see more examples of Gail’s work, both finished and in process, check out her lovely web site.

- Janet Pelz

  

Gail at work with her grandson.

Gail’s (not so) secrets for how she does it:

• she always has a physical space designated to her art, whether that be a spare bedroom in her house, or as it is today, a studio separate from her home;
• she takes time away from the daily crush of responsibilities to focus on and advance her art. Her residencies have been instrumental, though they bring with them a difficult separation from the people who mean the most to her;
• when she’s not away, she finds avenues to involve family in her studio work whenever she can, bringing her two worlds together;
• all the electronics that facilitate communication are invaluable -- cell phone and email to stay in touch with her kids and grandkids everyday, and the computer to stay in touch with everything else

What books are on Gail’s bookshelf?

Fortress of Solitude by Johnathan Lethem

• From Publisher’s Weekly: “If there still remains any doubt, this novel confirms Lethem's status as the poet of Brooklyn and of motherless boys.’

Motherless Brooklyn also by Johnathan Lethem

• From Publisher’s Weekly: “Lethem's gonzo detective novel that unfolds amidst the detritus of contemporary Brooklyn.”

Favorite reads include Housekeeping, A Novel, by Marilynne Robinson, and anything by Annie Proulx

Whom does she want me to interview next?

• Elizabeth Bryant, Seattle artist and writer, also caring for a husband with MS

 

 

How Do You: Make your holiday shopping count for more than piles of unrecyclable wrapping paper?

With the holidays bearing down, I’m looking for ideas from you on strategies to maximize the impact of your gift giving. Last year I did a great job of using holiday gifting as an opportunity to pass along items in my storage room to family and friends who could use them. I figured I accomplished multiple goals without adding to the production waste stream.

Presuming there is something you’ll be buying in the next month, what ideas do you have for:

• supporting local businesses, artists, and artisans, including those that are women-owned?
• helping non-profit organizations?
• emptying your house of unneeded stuff?
• promoting environmental stewardship?

To offer your suggestions, click the comment link below this article and you can also see what others are saying. Here are a couple ideas to get you started:

• We buy our Christmas trees from Greenlake Elementary.  It’s their big fundraising activity each year
• Woodland Park Zoois promoting its animal adoption program. You get a nice stuffed animal and educational information to go along with it. The World Wildlife Fund does a similar program – my kids really liked their adoption kits last year. What other non-profits offer special holiday giving ideas?
• Several local schools, my son’s included, sell Sally Foster wrapping paper as a fundraiser. This year their papers are all recyclable – yippee! There may be other recyclable brands as well. If you want to support our public school, let me know and I’ll send you the link.
• Here’s a woman-owned gift shop in Wedgwood, Fresh, that has gotten great reviews. What others are out there?
• Offer experiences rather than things – no waste and you get the added benefit of spending time with friends. What are your best experiences?

- Janet Pelz

 

Ewa Cuprys: Speaks 6 languages; holds 2 Masters Degrees; owns her own business

The Polish Government was nice enough to give them a choice: leave the country or go to jail.

Having served once already for political dissidence, Ewa’s husband preferred the other option. So, at age 27, with her husband, two young daughters and a Master’s degree in Economics, Ewa (pronounced ‘Eva’) left for Italy. It was to be resting point on an eventual journey to America – that was the future the young couple talked about. Until her husband was struck by a drunk driver while riding his bicycle to work. He died before reaching the hospital.

After putting her life back together, Ewa kept their dream alive, and with the money she saved from managing a small church in Rome, packed up her two children and set off for the United States. She chose Seattle as her destination, somewhat serendipitously, after a Tacoma native working at the U.S. Embassy in Rome recommended it. That was one of many lucky moments in her life Ewa will point to.

She could have gone the route other Poles took, to the big cities of Chicago or elsewhere, but Ewa knew if she surrounded herself with people who only knew her native tongue, she would have no reason to branch out. Seattle was a good choice in that regard. She came here without knowing anyone, and though she was already fluent in three languages, she knew nothing of the one that would pose the greatest challenge to her – English.

An international refugee organization helped her find an apartment and collected donations of furniture and home supplies. She arrived in Seattle on Thursday night. By the weekend she was settled. And on Monday, after her nine year-old daughter spoke to the building manager for her in English, she got her first job, painting apartments.

“I had never painted before and I’m sure I made many mistakes. But he was very patient, and I had a way to feed my family.”

After a time, she met another Polish woman who cleaned houses. “I had been cleaning houses since I was a little girl, so I knew I could do this. I was going to school four hours a week to learn English and raising my daughters. I needed a job I could do at different times of the day.” Ewa approached housecleaning as she had everything else in her life. “You have to commit to doing everything well.”

With political restrictions lifting in her native Poland, Ewa’s friend decided to go home. She turned her business over to Ewa, another piece of luck. That was twenty years ago.

From a single housecleaner then, she has steadily grown her business. She still does her share of cleaning, but more of her time is spent scheduling and supervising her eight full-time employees. The number of current clients, my family among them – too hard to count. Many residential customers now ask her to clean their downtown offices as well. “That’s good for my workers, some of whom can only work nights.”

 Ewa standing in my very practical kitchen, which she helps keep clean

These eight workers come from El Salvador, Ukraine, Russia, Poland, Mexico, and Costa Rica. Six different countries, four different languages. Ewa speaks to each of them in their native tongue.

“I think it’s not fair to expect them to speak English. Many of them have just come to the United States, some are too old to learn a new language. They can’t afford to go to school here. So, I just teach myself their language and then we can communicate.

“It took me just about two weeks to learn Russian. Of course, I had studied it in Poland – I read Dostoyevsky in Russian. But because of political conflicts with the Soviet Union, we would only read it and write it, never speak it. So it just took me just a little bit of time to learn to speak it. It’s a beautiful language.”

For me, my twice-monthly house cleaning is an indulgence.

For the women employed by Ewa Cuprys it is a lifeline.

You see, I’m their source of income. When I start washing my own floors, their families do without.

“Some of these women have no husbands, or their husbands cannot find work. They have green cards, but they can’t pass the citizenship test, which is now being given just in English. Some are sending money home to their children in another country. I really admire how hard they work. I guess they love their families more than they love themselves.”

And how about her daughters, who came here with Ewa at ages 4 and 9? Well, one went to Lakeside (for those unfamiliar, it’s the moneyed prep school that claims the likes of Bill Gates) on full scholarship where she impressed teachers with her command of six languages. Ewa would rise with her at 4:30 each morning to take her to ice skating lessons. She went on to the University of Chicago and then the University of Washington Law School and is now a practicing immigration lawyer in Miami. Her sister, also in Miami, got her law degree from Columbia after doing undergraduate work there.

When the girls still lived at home, they helped their mother earn her second Master’s Degree, this one in International Business at the University of Washington. Laughing, she described how the girls helped correct her papers written in the language that was still challenging her.

Yes, her daughters have done well for themselves and are living independently. But that’s not the end of raising children for Ewa. A year ago, her 16 year-old nephew moved in after his mother, Ewa’s sister, died.

“Maybe when he goes off to college I will do something new. But I like what I do now.”

Ewa’s (not so) secrets for how she does it:

• You cannot allow yourself not to do a good job.
• You cannot be afraid – it doesn’t matter what you are doing you must trust yourself.
• There is no ‘no’ in business. Always find a way to do the job.
• Take responsibility for yourself and teach your children to take responsibility for themselves.
• Live for more than yourself. Do something for others and help make a better world.
• Appreciate what you have – you probably don’t need more.

Ewa’s tips for house cleaning:

• Fancy cleaning products are no better than the basics: Comet cleanser, Soft Scrub, a degreaser for the kitchen, and only vinegar and water on wood floors (and dry them well – don’t let the water sit)
• Planning a kitchen remodel? Stainless appliances look good in the showroom and for about an hour after you clean them, then they get covered with grease and finger prints
• Don’t put wood floors in the kitchen or bathroom or marble counters in the kitchen. They look nice but they are impractical – very difficult to keep clean.
• Are you looking for a housecleaner? Contact Ewa at [email protected] and tell her you heard about her through “How Does She Do It?”

What book is Ewa reading?

• Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life, by Queen Noor of Jordan

Whom does she want me to interview in the future?

• She knows many immigrant women whose lives, she suggests, are even more interesting than hers.