Today we’d like to introduce you to Christina Franco
Hi Christina, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I’ve been an artist for as long as I can remember, always drawing, always creating something as a kid. When I was in about third grade we had an assignment to draw a bear, and so I drew one of my teddy bears from memory as I saw it in my mind’s eye, sitting there on my bed. That particular memory stands out to me because that was the moment I realized I had a talent for drawing, as all my peers started holding up their pictures next to mine and saying whoa how’d you do that?! As I saw drawing after drawing of their crude one dimensional forms of supposed bears I started to see the difference in my own art, how it looked like a stuffed animal bear, with its legs three dimensionally facing forward to hold itself in a sitting position, head slightly tilted with a lack of stuffing, giving it a bit of cute personality as well. From then on I was obsessed. I wanted to draw as realistically as possible. I carried a sketchbook everywhere and sat and drew what was in front of me whenever I could.
I also had this desire to craft things out of random materials, make dolls and clothes for them, take apart my clothes and refashion them entirely. Between school and the need for occasional sleep there just wasn’t enough hours in the day for my creativity. Needless to say I wasn’t a very high performing student, unless you count the standardized tests, in which case I won $3,000 in scholarships that could only be used for college I swore I’d never go to. By 18 yrs old I was a mom, and stayed home with my daughter and step-daughter for a few years before I decided maybe I should use that money after all. It ended up being the exact amount needed to pay for massage school and all the supplies needed to start a career making $50/hr.
During the time I spent taking those classes I fell in love with learning; the anatomy and physiology and science behind it all was so fascinating to me. It dawned on me that I earned that scholarship that gave me that career; it was all given to me for free, just for being smart! I woke up one morning and decided, I’m going to college to be a doctor, and I’m going to do it on scholarship. The next 4 years were spent as a community college student by day, massage therapist by evening, and mother every other hour in between. From then on I was always torn between science and art, and somehow always managed to walk the line between them and continue to do both.
When it came time to apply for universities I already knew where I wanted to go, and stubbornly (stupidly) only applied to the one, UC Davis. I graduated from Gavilan College with my AA in Natural Sciences and got into UCD on a transfer agreement with multiple scholarships. Once I started the intensity of UC I had to stop working and just focus on school full time. Things got very difficult during that time of my life. I was trapped in a toxic abusive marriage that I tried and failed to get out of. I was depressed, weak at heart, and convinced I couldn’t make it on my own. Within weeks of giving up the fight to get out I was pregnant, my educational career sabotaged by his stealth. I continued with it anyway. I took a quarter off to have the baby, and then when he was 3 months old and tied to my chest I returned. Things went a lot slower after that, especially the older and less cooperative he got, making my last year at UC Davis take 2 years to complete. When I graduated I cried. Both tears of joy and triumph and also sorrowful defeat, because I was exhausted. There was no way I was going to med school. I was so deflated. So depressed. I stayed home with him for 4 years after that, and it was the darkest time of my life. I had a degree in Nutrition Science, but my grades had dropped after I started bringing a baby to school and my GPA was too low for me to get into a dietetics internship or a graduate program. I was applying for lab jobs but the longer after graduation it got the harder it got to even be considered.
I started focusing on my art instead. In 2016 I published an adult coloring book through Amazon called Color My Blessings, full of abstract portraits of my friends and family. It didn’t sell very well, but I was still proud of it. I commissioned a few paintings and illustrated a book for one of my favorite authors, Angela Roquet. I hit a suicidal rock bottom in 2018 that ended up being the turning point I needed, helping me finally get out of my marriage thanks to an organization called Empower Yolo. I moved into a safe house with my kids and was able to build my life up from nothing, and eventually together we got into a peaceful little yellow house of our own. I find it very fitting that the first job I was able to find was with a company called On My Own Independent Living Services, however I did find a job working in a lab shortly after. That company became like family to me, as I made close friendships and found support systems during covid time. I didn’t make a lot but I made do, and my kids and I lived in our tiny yellow house for a set of years that will always be a magical little bubble of memory for me. We got a dog, I bought my dream car, I went to therapy and together we healed. I made some of my best art during all of that, fueled by the fire of the soul, and as such moved away from realistic portraiture into more abstract forms of expression.
I’m now happily in my second marriage, working as a high school chemistry teacher, something I honestly never thought I’d be doing for a living but I love it. I’m still creating art in my free time, which now involves crochet as well. I never ended up going to medical school, or even making it as a big selling artist in any way, because life just doesn’t always go the way we plan it to. But I still walk that line between art and science, dipping my toes into both enough to feed my soul and touch other’s lives in a meaningful way as much as I can.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There have been some parts along the way where it felt like smooth sailing, and then times when I wondered if I would ever catch a break. During college I was constantly sleep deprived, and there was always a few too many things on my task list that would remain unchecked. I remember literally finishing a school project at 7 am just in time to go wake up the kids and get them ready for school. Another time I turned right at a stop light right in front of a no turn on red sign and a cop, just completely not thinking because I had stayed up all night studying for finals. Looking back on those years in our little yellow house it felt like smooth sailing, because it was peaceful and happy, but it wasn’t without it’s challenges. I was a single mom on a very low income, so I did my share of food bank visits and had a very carefully executed credit card juggle to get me through paycheck to paycheck without going into debt (and managed to build up a savings too).
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I used to do a lot more realistic portrait type work, because it’s an area I am very good at with small details, but I find abstract work to be a lot more expressive and satisfying. I work best with acrylic paint or pencil drawing but I like to find ways to use other types of media to create art as well. I’ve also been doing a lot of crochet lately; there’s something very rewarding in creating something functional. I think what sets me apart from others is the way that I see things. I tend to see art in places where others do not, I see beauty in things others might miss.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Some would call it grit, tenacity, or having a strong drive, but I’d say my stubborn nature has definitely helped keep me going in times when many others would have given up. When I get my sights set on something I want in life I tend to get it. Not because I’m spoiled, but because I find out what work is needed to get it, and then I will do whatever it takes and won’t stop until I do.
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