Stacy Isenbarger

A tribute to my friend Stacy - an artist, art educator and career angel

We couldn’t afford to stay at the resort, so my wife and I paid for a day-package. Mei and I had just gotten married in my mom’s backyard and it was BYOB — that’s how broke we were. A few weeks later I found myself at Chico Hot Springs in Chico, Montana. On an adjunct art professor salary my idea of a honeymoon was to 1. get my employer to help pay for me to go a conference for art educators in Bozeman, Montana, 2. buy a bunch of camping stuff at a Goodwill, and 3. at the conclusion of the conference drive around the west camping for a week or two. So the hot spring water felt especially relaxing in between free primitive camping sites north of Yellowstone.

To my surprise, in the in the geothermal-heated mineral water of Chico Hot Springs, right in front of me was Stacy Isenbarger and her friend Rae Goodwin. Stacy and Rae were two foundations art professors had had just helped to lead the conference in Bozeman. They were art foundations rock stars. They knew everything. They knew everyone. We exchanged a momentarily awkward glance and then delighted laughter. I introduced my partner to them.

At that point in my life I had just made the decision to go all in on trying to become an art professor. I was playing catch up. I didn’t know what art professors did exactly or how to become on. So I figured I would just start going to the places where lots of art professors were, find the nice ones and just sort of pretend to be one. So that’s what I was doing all week in Bozeman. As one of the only adjunct employees at the event, I was furiously taking notes and excitedly ideating about curriculum and the importance of creating learning environments that foster risk.

Each morning of the conference I watched in awe as Stacy Isenbarger made rousing speeches and did silly dances and generally inspired and entertained a group of about one-hundred educators to do their best and to think deeply about education. I saw the faces of otherwise gruff, aging professors soften and light up. People laughed. She made people care. Stacy was effective. How? I thought to myself. How does she do this? Stacy was two years younger than me, but had the boundless energy of a teenager, the charisma of a seasoned professional and the magic of a fairy. I wanted to be like her (still do, never will get there!).

So it was uncanny that fifty miles and a couple days out from the Bozeman conference, on my exact post-conference itinerary and timeline there she was! That was somehow heartening; maybe my ultimate budget post-conference travel plan wasn’t so weird. After all, real life badass tenure-track professors were doing the same thing. That chance meeting in swimsuits, surrounded by steamy water and the noisy laughter of children, it solidified our friendship.

Months later I saw Stacy again, this time in Indianapolis at yet another conference for art educators. I was making big strides both in my teaching and research, and had secured an interview for a tenure-track job at Washington State University. I bought a tie. When I ran into Stacy in a hallway at the conference and told her about my upcoming interview, she freaked out. “I know those people!” she exclaimed.

As it turned out, Stacy just so happened to work a few miles down the road from Washington State University across the Idaho border at the University of Idaho. It was another delightful coincidence. She set aside sometime the following day to hang out, and she gleefully offered information and tips that might help me in my upcoming interview out on the Palouse.

When I arrived in Pullman I had already been gifted just a bit of Stacy’s confidence. And it worked. She was effective. I got the job and I’ve been out here for a decade.

Stacy always took such immense pleasure in helping others. It’s why she went to all those conferences, took on so many leadership roles both in her department and nationally in her field of foundations art education. She was a navigator and guide to the universe. She didn’t have to do all that. She relished the opportunity to help people and to share what she had learned. Meeting her showed me what an art professor could be. That it didn’t have to be boring. That it could be fulfilling and magical at times. That it could be a way to help people and to bring joy to other people.

Stacy died yesterday. I’m writing this to try and make just a little bit of sense of it. But I know it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t want to misrepresent our friendship. We weren’t besties; we were art cousins. But I am writing this in part because I know this is the kind of story that so many other people will have. Like she did for so many other people, in my life Stacy flickered delightfully in and out of the frame, reminding me of what was possible.

I am not really as spiritual as I once was. But sometimes I will see a bird or something and think this is a sign. When I think that, I sometimes catch myself and think how ridiculous that is, how random the universe is. But given that hundreds of other art educators and artists are on social media today calling Stacy an angel, I am giving myself permission to think that ridiculous thought — not to diminish the fullness of her presence in the lives of others, but in an attempt to wrest a sense of personal meaning out of the pointlessness and cruelty of this. It could be true. She was an angel.

A few months ago in February we hosted Stacy for a solo exhibition at our galleries at Washington State University. February is always the hardest month of the year for me. The dark winter hangs on. So it was especially delightful to see and work with Stacy those weeks and help her install her last solo exhibition. She brought so much warmth and light. The show was beautiful and her artist talk inspired so many of our students. She modeled how your art can be an extension of your authentic self. She talked and walked us through the tangled shiny fabric of her life.

After the talk, Stacy and I went out and had a wonderful meal with her partner and a couple grad students and caught up like cousins do. It had been a while. I had missed her. The next day I guess she wasn’t feeling well. And the day after that she received the diagnosis — a rare blood condition called Aplastic Anemia. It happened so fast. In the weirdly stretched and compressed academic calendars of middle-age February was yesterday. Stacy’s sister explained succinctly on social media: her bone marrow was not making enough new blood cells for her body to work normally.

wtf.

Valiant efforts were made. Stacy passed peacefully yesterday August 4th at the age of 42. So many today are heartbroken. She worked so hard. She did so much. She was such a good dancer. And now she is gone.

I will miss you Stacy. We all will.