The Way We Are
Comments:
Just got in from tutoring English in Rosslyn... and I'm a novice at where what I write goes but here it goes... I do have a few photos and will add more images since I've worked for around 35 years as an editorial (political) illustrator and news graphic designer until Bush's second term. Then, I lost my sense of humor and visual irony just didn't satisfy me anymore. Worked mostly on international political venues for European clients but was editorial page designer and cartoonist at Gazette Newspapers of Montgomery County which is owned by Washington Post... I got married at, if memory serves, at 37 and had children a couple of years later, two daughters, Kara Savidge who is 19 and Erin Savidge who is 16 years old...They have kept me grounded and centered and joyous since. Dads and daughters are the greatest thing since sliced cheese. The woman I married was (and oddly enough still is) 13 years my junior and was enamored of hippies, of which I was a very political one at GWU, but she didn't really know who I was, and maybe neither did I, then. So this Pennsylvania dear, my ex, outgrew me and packed it in with my children back to roughly Hershey, Pa. where she hailed from... At 16 and 19 I have told them both I am in no hurry to have little Savidges, grandchildren, running around.
Lived mostly in DC area except for an excursion to the hinterlands of Germantown, Md. and Hagerstown, Md. for a closer commute to see my children while they were growing up to the ripe age of 13, at which time, they knew everything there was to know and didn't need to be with me here in DC on such a regular basis.
The eldest daughter is a junior this fall at Temple University in Philly and has made dean's list every semester since she started... read boasting parent. The younger daughter is a junior in high school this fall and trying to outdo her older sister...I'm blessed. But, retirement will not be anytime soon and I am with my extra time launching into a career as a linguist around D.C. and thinking maybe to be a teacher until I drop... It is a lot easier than arguing with editors and reporters as to what image to draw on deadline... which I did for way too long. As a teacher, they pay you to pontificate... for me that's therapy and my students pay to receive it...we are not talking public school teaching. I'm not that brave or patient.
Personally, I beat prostate cancer February 16th of this year by having the bad boy, the prostate, taken out by a Lebanese surgeon at Alexandria Inova. It was about 80% cancerous and I would have been dead in about a year or so but, as I say, I am blessed, if in debt, with no health insurance.
Prior to my marriage, I've lived briefly in Chicago, working for the Illinois Housing Development Authority in early 70's, the Boulder, Colorado, studying Buddhism and calligraphic drawing at Naropa Institute, in 1975, and working for the Philadelphia Mints contract for Bicentennial bronze eagles at Quest Corporation (not the same as the dot.com Quest, this was a foundry.. and Charlottesville, Va. working as a mural artist...each one of these places a little less than a year or so. All before I was married. The rest of the time I have been in DC in different communities and Takoma Park, Md. or in short the Washington, D.C. area.
There, that's a fairly succinct review of my vita since high school and working with Don Lichty at Presidential Classroom for Young Americans as program coordinator, which I did straight out of GWU in 1970... It's been, for the most part, a gas and continues to keep me alert and engaged. This might be TMI but what the hey. I can't believe this device, Facebook, has brought up all these names that have really never left me...
All the best,
Bob
Current Photos:
Bob Savidge - 2006
