Stephanie Neely [NRA 2011]
First name: Stephanie ;
Middle name: ;
Last name: Neely ;
Member: Non-resident artist member ;
Begin: 2011 ;
End: ;
Biography:
The winding road of my life as an artist has taken many and varied turns, most of which had nothing to do with art.
Crayons and color books, markers and pencils, watercolors and acrylics – and then suddenly ” you need to study something that will lead to employment” – no more art. (Well, I still managed to sneak some art into that practical college education anyway).
My parents, dearly beloved and now departed, insisted that I attend and graduate from a 4 year college, and that I pay for it myself, and so I did by working from the time I was 16 years old. Fortunately for me, my father influenced me to attend North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. It was, and I suppose still is, a great school.
I wanted to study Art, but NCSU does not have an art program, so I studied English, and then Forestry, and then Horticulture. I must confess that did not know what the word “horticulture” meant until I found the program through a brochure that my husband (then boyfriend) found as we were desperately looking for an alternative to Forestry. (Please note: we went to college at a time when you were pretty much on your own in terms of selecting your program, classes and career in college). But i loved Horticulture because the program at State combined the science of plant material with the art of landscape design
After graduation from college with a degree in Landscape Horticulture, I worked as a landscape designer for awhile. It didn’t pay well. And I mused on occasion that I had given up a plan to study art for something more practical and still landed in a job that paid just above the minimum wage. So I took my drafting skills to the tax mapping department at Mecklenburg County for higher pay and great benefits. I lasted just under 2 years until I made my escape to a land surveying firm in Charlotte, NC. Lower pay but much more fun. (As an aside, why do all the fun jobs in life pay so poorly?!)
Well, moving on in time, I learned how to survey, passed the North Carolina licensing examinations for Landscape Architecture and Land Surveying, ran my own little business for a few years, was diagnosed with breast cancer, and decided to change the trajectory of my life. So I went to law school.
I thought, in error, that I could escape all the fear and ennui of life by diving into a noble and respected profession and gaining the admiration of the world as a lawyer. I attended a fairly prestigious law school, at least in this part of the world, and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1994. But that art bug was still there. My notes from law school were riddled with sketches and doodles, and I made all the exhibits and demonstrative evidence for my classmates in moot court exercises.
I worked as a lawyer for about 10 years, and to be perfectly honest, I did not like it very much. So I decided to teach law to paralegals at a community college. That was, and is, a pretty fine use of a law degree, and I have enjoyed it.
https://stephanieneely.com/about
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Document information
Document permalink:
http://salmagundi.org/artist/?p=72619
Digital-born document number:
SAL.2019.72619
Record birth date:
December 23, 2019
Last updated: January 30, 2023 at 15:09 pm