She had a son, and then spent 30 years color coding her systems for coordinating permits, performing bookkeeping, preparing taxes, applying for grants, and billing insurances or clients. All done with the methodical attention to detail that one might apply to arranging vintage comic book series in chronological order by plot line and artist.
At times Helen managed more than fifty employees on $10,000,000 in annual hospital contracts, traveled twenty days per month for seven consecutive years, and successfully transferred the employee benefits of 126 individuals in exactly seven days—a feat that required the coordination of health, dental, vision, Section 125, and three separate retirement packages – with only MicroSoft Office, highlighters, and a battered copy machine at her disposal.
Her volunteer work included working with an artist’s union in Ft Myers, Keep St Pete Lit’s reading festival, and eight consecutive years with SHINE MuralFest, where she delivered meals to mural artists, conducted bicycle tours of the city’s public art, and managed painting stations with the same organizational efficiency she once brought to corporate training sessions.
All the while Helen quietly painted, cut, glued, salvaged, carved, and built multimedia art pieces in her hidden studios to maintain her sanity. Selling work at small art sales and tiny galleries, attempting to build an on-line presence, and creating an absurdity of frustrated artistic ambitions by attempting to juggle it ALL alone.
