What have you been up to since you graduated?
Since 1989, I've discovered that I never do anything in a direct path, and though I've had a number of experiences, I always seem to come into everything through the side door. I started using my middle name "Cinque" in the first year of college after spending time in Italy; my Italian friends preferred it since it's the same as their word for "five." So anybody who's been googling me under my high school name would be out of luck, but I'm easily found under "Cinque Hicks."
After majoring in Literature I went right into the publishing business. Several years in, I got restless and became a community organizer in Central and South Texas. Those were amazing experiences as I helped communities organize for more responsible bank lending in poor and moderate neighborhoods. (Well, now we all know how much that was really needed back then!)
Through it all, I always assumed I'd be a writer (fiction), but somewhere along the way I discovered visual art and design and fell in love. I opened my own graphic and media design business, rose with the heady dot com boom where I was being paid ridiculous sums just for sitting around sticking Post-its on a wall. Then I crashed with the dot-bust and went back into publishing with a 75% pay cut! Good times. Good times...
The upside of the crash was that I gained the time to continue exploring many facets of art and design. I moved to Atlanta where for the last 3 years I've been restoring a bungalow built in 1919 and learning this hard lesson: Just because something was built in ye olden days doesn't mean they knew what they were doing.
So for the last few years I've been running a book production business, working with publishers as clients, while finding fulfillment on the side as a curator and arts writer. (Most of the people who know me here know me as the art critic for Atlanta's alt weekly newspaper.)
I've recently gone back to school at Georgia Tech to prepare for the next chapter in my life. I have begun to use my previous skills and experience to work with cities to understand and improve their digital media infrastructures for the new economy, what some are calling the "creative economy."
Also, I've learned how to keep a plant alive! Life continues to be a pretty cool adventure.
