“Feel the Rain”

I worked in the Information Technology field for twenty years, but I didn’t climb up the corporate ladder-- it was a jungle gym!

I worked for my last company for over twelve years, holding five different positions in four different departments. I had a broad portfolio of experience on both the technical and business side. The details of my positions really don’t matter, but I essentially managed a lot of large-scale, high-risk, global technology projects internally and for our customers regardless of the position I held.

And THEN I got a big promotion to a management position in a newly created department!

The position was not in IT but on the business side, so I had to learn aspects of the business to which I hadn’t been exposed before. This department was created due to a re-org so I had to help decide how the department would function, what people’s new titles would be, and what their new roles would entail. I had over a dozen direct reports, and I needed to learn what they each did as well as keep their morale up while I broke the news to them that we were changing how they’d worked for years.

I was new to the department. They didn’t know me. I didn’t know them. It was my job to turn their world upside down in the name of improved efficiency while keeping them happy enough not to quit.

That was how 2020 started. We all know what happened next.

I won’t get into detail except to say I survived the April layoff, which reorganized the department again, so had to start from scratch with a new team after I was just getting to know my first one. But it didn’t really matter since the August layoff came after managers like me.

I’d only been in that position for 9 months. I guess that made me an easy cut.

The chaos, stress and sleepless nights in the months before the layoff were hard on me. I’d known a layoff was coming in August already, but my boss started treating me differently in June. By the beginning of July, I knew I wasn’t going to make the cut.

My husband said I was paranoid. Anyway, I made sure I had nothing personal on my work laptop. I enrolled in Graphic Design courses. The stress of what I’d been through in the previous months was so high, I knew I needed to do SOMETHING different if and when I was axed.

One day, it was so stinking hot outside. We didn’t have the AC on. The heat was going to be short-lived… A storm was coming!

I looked outside and saw clouds rolling in, so I decided to grab a drink and sit on the steps to watch the approach. Dark clouds rolled in against a bright sky—it was awesome! Then, the sky burst open!

I stood up and let the rain come down on me. It felt so good in the heat. It felt so good just to BE! As I got drenched, I saw the neighbors looking out the windows. I laughed and laughed! Let them watch! They probably thought I was drunk out there with my drink—let them! I felt so FREE!

I felt so ME!

I had been so stressed and weighed down for so long, I don’t know when I changed. When I’d become so serious. But this was who I once had been! This was who I was deep down inside! This was who I wanted to be again! I hadn’t felt so much like MYSELF for so long! This was ME!

And I remembered the saying that Bob Marley is often credited for, “Some people feel the rain, others just get wet.”

And that was when I decided: if I get laid off, I’m going to become an artist. My business name will be Feel the Rain Studio.

I went into the house, opened my laptop, and drew a rough sketch of what I thought I could make into my logo.

Quite a rough sketch, but cute enough!

Two weeks later to the day, my boss scheduled a last-minute meeting at 9:30AM on a Monday the week she was supposed to be on vacation. I told my husband, “I’m getting laid off today. This might be my only chance. If I get laid off, I want to give being an artist a real try.”

He said, “I don’t think you’re getting laid off but if you do, then go for it! I support you!”

At 10AM, after my suspicions were confirmed, I made myself a Mai Tai to celebrate. I’d told my boss and the HR woman, “You don’t have to worry about me. Whatever I do now, it’s going to be amazing.” They both cried. I didn’t.

So I climbed to the next bar of the jungle gym of my career. It’s really high, it’s really risky, it’s really scary. But this is my chance of living my dream. Of being me. Of really feeling the rain.

A much better logo designed by April Minech.

How It All Started…

Like many people, I started drawing at a very young age. I was the youngest of three children with a significant age gap between my siblings and me. It was completely understandable that pre-teens had better things to do than to play with someone my age, but that also meant I had to entertain myself!

My mom gave me notebooks and crayons. I had a little desk in my room that was just my size, which was the coolest thing ever. I would fill notebooks with drawings as if they were storybooks. Drawing pictures was a gateway to another world for me.

I once got in trouble and was sent to my room for an hour as punishment. When the punishment was over, I asked, “Can I go to my room for an hour every day?”

In other words: I was hooked.

Also in other words: My mom probably wondered, “NOW what will I do as a grounding!?”

I was lucky to have a lot of extended family members who encouraged my artistic aspirations. Aunts always wanted me to bring them drawings when I went to visit. One aunt was a very good painter and would take me to art fairs.

But my grandmother, Peaches, was especially enthusiastic about supporting my artistic dreams. I remember her always telling me about how “a real artist” lived next to my aunt. One day, she took me to meet her. I was so excited-- she gave me a little sample set of oil paints! I felt like I’d met Bob Ross!

Peaches also would hang my drawings up on her walls. Some of them were gifts to her so she hung them all over her house, even framing a few. She’d hang the drawings I made while I visited her in the kitchen like a gallery so when family members came to visit, they could pick the one they wanted!

As I went through school, I was lucky to have teachers who recognized my passion and my talent. I was further encouraged by winning 1st place in a yearly art contest at school almost every year.

My proud 2nd grade moment right there. I loved that trophy.

Kids are always asked, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Well, I made up my perfect career. It was perfect for me then and it still kind of is: I want to be a singing artist!

What did this mean? I thought I could set up outside on a sidewalk somewhere and paint. While I painted, I’d sing!!! Then people could tip me in a cup for my performance as I painted and once I was done with the painting, they could buy it!

The thread between who I was and who I am as an adult is fun because, at the heart of it all, I’m the same: My favorite thing in the world always was and always will be to create art and sing my heart out as I’m doing it!

Now, I spent 20 years of my life working in IT. How I made that choice and my subsequent shift into my art career is a story for another day. But I reflect on the support I grew up with and the excitement that people showed about my TALENT as a child and, you know, it’s a shame… somewhere along the way, the older you get the less value that people put into an artistic talent or “having a great imagination”. We grow up hearing how great these qualities are, then reach young adulthood facing society saying, “Well how are you going to make money?”

So if you know a child who has artistic dreams, support that. It may not seem like a big deal now, but here I am, a middle-aged emerging artist saying that the memories of that support helped me then and helps me now. I think about my most supportive family members who are no longer with us and am very motivated by the thought of how proud they’d be of me if they were here!

So have conversations with that kid. Talk to them about how they can build those dreams into a reality in ways they don’t even know possible! They can be a painter, a sculptor, a poet. There is web design, multimedia careers, graphic design, and so much more for a creative to leverage their talent into a successful career!

Be someone they’ll remember when they’re my age and say, “This person was so supportive, it’s how I got to where I am today!”

Nice to meet you!

Well, my first blog post… What better way to start than by introducing myself? I think I’m going to keep this simple with some basic “get to know me” stuff now and get into my art in future posts because I have some stories to tell there!

Without further ado…

I’m Emily Glass, a professional artist and lifelong resident of the Pittsburgh area. I only began my career as an artist in 2020, though I’ve been an “artist-at-heart” my whole life.

Did I go to school for it? Nope! I earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Pittsburgh. Then I spent two years in a certification program at what is now known as Pittsburgh Technical College and achieved some major Microsoft Certifications after that. Because I love learning, I then got a master’s degree in information systems management at Robert Morris University. Before I became a full-time artist, I worked in Information Technology for twenty years!

The best part of all that schooling, though, was meeting my husband at RMU! The first day I saw him was the first day of my first class. On commencement day, he proposed!

Oh, and when I first met him, I couldn’t stand him. “Arrogant jerk” was how I’d have described him. Lucky for both of us, I am big at giving people second chances and will admit when I’m wrong!

I’ve been happily married to Mike since 2008. We share a love of our cats, traveling together, and going to concerts and local sporting events. After all these years together, we still spend hours talking over drinks and listening to music. We mostly listen to punk rock and reggae but we like to mix in oldies and old country now and then. But Alexa would tell you we listen to pop and lots of 90s too… Because I’m belting it out when he’s not home!

I love adventure and am lucky Mike is a good sport about what I get us into! Before the pandemic, we frequented the island of Jamaica. Not like all-inclusive resorts—We have rented a car and driven the entire island several times. We stayed in the mountains in a cottage built on stilts. We stayed on a 12-acre pineapple farm. We have eaten foods that most tourists would never consider trying. If electricity was sketchy, if there was no hot water or AC, if it was hard to get to, I wanted to experience it! Thankfully, Mike says, “You make the plans and just tell me where to drive!”

I am a gardener, I suppose… That is, I plant flower beds and veggie gardens every year. I adore it! Being barefoot in the grass and digging in the dirt is one of my favorite things to do, so I even love pulling weeds. That said, I find the act of watering everything to be such a chore, so I get lazy with that and by the end of the year I am thankful for anything that survives the drought I put it through. But, being in Pittsburgh, it rains a lot, so sometimes it all works out.

For over twenty years I’ve dealt with autoimmune diseases, having been diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis first, then with Multiple Sclerosis in 2015. I won’t get into details now since I have some art-related stories around that for later. But that has shaped another big part of my life: my diet! I keep myself on a very restricted diet to help manage my conditions, so I spend a lot of my time making food! I make my own kombucha, sauerkraut, and bone broth. I eat more vegetables than anyone I know. I love experimenting with food for myself but am nowhere near the chef that my husband is. So generally I make a lot of breakfasts and lunches for myself and he handles dinner! (I am thankful for it!)

I know this may not have been the intro you’d expect, but you’ll be hearing a lot about my art, my influences, my processes, how I got here, and more in future posts. Until then, thanks for taking a moment to get to know me!