Zhen Rathbun
Life takes us to unexpected paths from time to time. This axiom of life was certainly true for me in 2020. The year began with so much promise and prosperity, then the COVID-19 hit each coroner of the world. After being a successful aviation professional for more than 20 years, I was laid off during the spring pandemic lockdown. Within days I was convinced this would be a very long road to recovery, I pondered a very remote chance of returning to GE Aviation. It seems life has always brought me very significant challenges about every decade, particularly so for the last three ones. This is round 3. The round 2 was an exceptionally long journey of emotional and professional upheaval, recovery and rebuilding. After having finally depleted the entirety of my feelings of misery, I was determined “NO REFILL”. From that moment on, I decided to live my life with both joys and inner peace no matter WHAT disappointment I experience and WHAT roadblocks are ahead of me. Five days after I was told being laid off, with helps and supports from my son and close friends, I went through multiple cascading stages of emotion: from the initial shock, disbelieve, distress, to apparently emotional detachment from GE. I was told, “Zhen, you have so many talents”, “If ANYONE comes out of this stronger, that would be YOU!”, “Zhen, what you lost is a job, NOT who you ARE!”. Writing those down today still brings me to tears. How blessed I have been to have such great people around me. Having been trained in aerospace technology, and worked in the engineering field for most of my life (with both bachelor and master degrees in aviation engineering plus an MBA). It’s safe to say the left side of my brain has gotten more than its fair share of development. In light of this I began to contemplate the possibility of exploring the right side of my brain, to unleash the artistic creativity. Of course, that was a vague and remote desire, or as my friend said: “That is BOLD!” To my surprise, there were unanticipated synergies and complementarities that were dormant and had eluded me. But they were nevertheless present. As it turns out, the engineering background comes in very handy with artistic expression. After all, our brains intertwine through the corpus colosseum from left to right, and they reciprocally enhance each other seamlessly. Those are just my personal observations, NOT academic claims. So please do not hold me accountable if I am wrong. Growing up in China during Mao’s time, living through starvation, art was unattainable, ethereal, and more distant than Mars. Even the planets seemed more real, as they can be seen at night. There was NO art while I grew up, the whole country was colorless, black, white, grey, green and blue sky was my full color spectrum. Mao and other world leader portraits were my sole art exposure. So, I started my artistic journey from ground-zero. The silver lining is that I don’t even have a box to think out of. I have boundless and untapped creativity, because, literally, the SKY is the limit. I have been pouring my passion, energy, and heart into this new adventure. To me, art is like a perfect soul mate: responsive, compassionate, attentive, extreme in connection. It is transformative and liberating to channel the artistic energy, to connect and communicate through abstract media. Each painting carries a piece of my heart, soul and spirit, in return, each one replenishes me with new insights, emotions, contentment, tranquility, harmony… and refuels the cycle again. I invite you to join me on this journey, to explore this intriguing, wonderful and marvelously mysterious world. I hope my art will bring you some joy, reflection, and inner peace. Thanks wholeheartedly. Zhen