Editor's note: This is the first in an ongoing series of stories about people overcoming layoffs and other hardships caused by the recession. They are taking advantage of the change in their lives by reinventing their careers, starting new businesses or enhancing their resumes by going back to school or taking training courses. They are bouncing back.
HAVERHILL — For 20 years, Sue Bodenrader toiled in the 9 to 5 grind as a corporate executive assistant, making appointments and taking calls for "C-level" officials from various local high-tech and pharmaceutical firms.
Then, in January, it all came crashing down when she was laid off from Uhuru Scientific in Wilmington. Instantly, she joined millions of others around the country suffering as the global slowdown takes its toll on workers from day laborers on construction sites to the presidents of the nation's largest financial services companies.
But Bodenrader didn't sit back and wait for her share of the stimulus money to boost her unemployment checks. She did something.
"I looked at it as an opportunity," she said, "to see the good in a bad economy."
Acting on her lifelong passion for art and a longtime dream to be an entrepreneur, Bodenrader, 41, who lives on Centre Street in Haverhill, has launched a commercial art and mural painting business.
"I'm focusing on my dream and concentrating on being my own future," said Bodenrader, who's been painting and drawing pictures since she was a child.
Hanging on the wall of her parents' house in Georgetown, for example, is one of her earliest framed works — a portrait of her and her brother that she drew when she was in a timeout at the age of 12.
Throughout the immaculate Cape-style home are paintings and drawings penned and painted by Bodenrader, culminating in a recently done 5-foot by 10-foot mural of a wintry mountain scene with sheep in the foreground, a red house, and soft snowflakes drifting amid tall trees.
It's both relaxing and quirky, but fits nicely with the country-style setting of the home. That's one of her goals — to develop art and interiors that fit the space and enhance the surroundings.
"I want to add value to the home and bring joy to the customer," Bodenrader said, noting that she is open to working for all sorts of clients, doing large or small paintings at home nurseries, government buildings, private companies, homes and restaurants, to name a few.
She doesn't have a price list because every mural is different. The one she did for her parents, for example, took her 50 hours to design and paint. And she doesn't draw the line, so to speak, at art. Recently her jobs have included interior design and planning work.
Artwork aside, it will be the business end of things that most dictates whether she will succeed or fail. She said she's giving it a "good year" and that if she's unsuccessful, she'll go back to the 9 to 5, but keep growing the mural business on the side.
If business takes off, however, she's ready.
Working shoulder to shoulder with CEOs and CFOs from area companies, Bodenrader learned the art of people skills and professionalism.
"I'm not a flighty artist," she said. "I'm more of a businessperson with an artistic flair."
Although her business is in its early stages, she's networking with old friends and meeting potential new clients. She recently landed a mural customer through a referral from an interior designer.
Looking for inspiration and mentorship, she's met with renowned muralist and commercial artist Alan Pearsall, whose work can be found in Haverhill, Ipswich and beyond.
She's also set up a Web site showcasing her work and is expanding her field of Facebook friends in an effort to get the message out.
"A lot of it is word of mouth," she said of her marketing campaign.
But it's word of mouth with a clear purpose.
"The reality of it is that while I'm happy to be out of the 9 to 5, it's a scary time," she said. "I'm a single woman with a mortgage."
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