At 43 and after nine years of loyal employment, a little over a week ago, I was let go from my day job as a legal administrative assistant/paralegal due to “cutbacks” from the Covid-19 pandemic. I’m actually not writing to gripe about my former job or even about losing that job, but to cast a light on trying to find a silver lining for my current unemployment situation and hoping to help others in similar unfortunate circumstances find a silver lining as well. To do this, I have to give you a little bit of my “backstory”.
Perseverance in the face of dramatic change.
I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Legal Studies in 1999 from UCF and most of the electives I took throughout college were legal-oriented. I’ve worked in the legal field since 1997, even though I veered off track and went into the information technology field for seven years working as a web developer for a credit union, but during that time, I also maintained working as a part-time legal billing assistant on the side.
From the age of six, I started drawing and I don’t mean “stick” drawings. I was already sketching things as I saw them with detail. I began painting at the age of 12 and writing poetry around the same time. The interest of writing poetry flowed into writing short stories and then into writing song lyrics. Growing up, I spent summers at my grandparents house drawing random objects and scenes on big pads of paper. In middle school, I took a few art classes, just because I wanted to go to a class where I could do something I liked, not because I felt like I could learn something – even though I did enjoy my teacher’s critiques. I still remember her name. 🙂
My drawing of my middle school was published on the annual catalog handout when I was in 7th grade.
In 2001, just three months after 9/11, I took off on my first trip to Europe and picked up a camera for the first time. From then on, my travel photography collection grew – as did my travel photography fans. I began showing my work, then selling my work – very successfully – before I ever learned anything about photo retouching.
My travel photography (now retouched…)
I think it wasn’t until a decade post-Bachelor’s degree, that I went back to school – to Eckerd College – and joined the Visual Arts program because I finally became genuinely interested in learning technical art skills such as things like: perspective, depth, texture, etc. I was pretty close to finishing that degree in Visual Arts but I was laid off from a legal job too early before a planned move to New York City so I ended up moving up north earlier than expected.
College artwork from Eckerd College.
Once I hit the Big Apple, I obtained this position as a legal administrative assistant (in which I later took on a wide variety of paralegal duties), however, my creative juices blew up. I started a photography workshop group called NYC Digital Photography Workshops, which today is a 5,500 member group, and offers over 120 hands-on workshop topics on photography. In 2013, I began photographing headshots for actors and portfolio photos for models. I officially opened my own photography business as Dawn M. Wayand Photography in 2015, adding portrait photography services to the mix as well. I was also painting regularly in my spare time. In late-2015 I began writing professionally for The Adorama Learning Center and to date have written 75 feature photography articles and gear and tech reviews for their website. In 2017, I also started writing feature photography articles for B&H Photo’s website Explora. Finally, in late-2018 I contributed a few articles to Digital Photography School’s website in which my first article, Center Field – 9 Acceptable Ways for Breaking the Rule of Thirds in Photography, received over 9K likes in the first few days after publication.
Shooting a model portfolio on location down the street from my old home studio in the SE Bronx.
In 2019, I had put my camera down for a year after my apartment/home studio burned down in December of 2018 and instead, became even more serious about painting. I created over 50 paintings throughout 2019. Did I mention I was also still working full time in the legal field?
Just a small sampling of some of my recent paintings.
Circle back to 2020. As you can probably tell, I have been struggling for several decades with balancing work in the legal field and following my passions as a creative. I’m trying to look at my recent departure from my former job because of cutbacks due to “Covid-19” as a possible blessing in disguise. Was it the push I needed to jump out of the legal field and into doing what I love full time instead? I hope.
Since I was let go, I have been taking inventory of what I need to sustain a living as a creative and have started taking steps to build up what I need to get there. Since all of this time I’ve been working full time in the legal field, it’s been difficult to find enough time to dedicate to getting everything done that needs to get done to make things happen to move toward that goal. Now that I temporarily have more time on my hands, I can pursue those tasks and hopefully, move toward doing what I love for a living – successfully: writing, photography (including teaching again through my group) and art. That’s my silver lining.
I hope others who have been let go in the face of these horrible circumstances take a moment to analyze their situation, dreams and desires and if they are not already doing what they love for a living, contemplate possibly taking a leap of faith and pursuing doing what they love for a living. This is the perfect time and opportunity to educate yourself on the ins and outs of a craft you’re interested in, to network and to apply for positions as they become available.
I wish everyone the best of luck. Stay safe and well.
