Transitions
Family Time
Christina Pagonis ’79 and her husband were setting out to find a Christmas tree. They had made this trip many times, and it could have been a chore. But with their twin 18-month-old sons in the back seat, noticing Christmas lights for the first time, Pagonis saw it all differently.
“They were so enamored of the lights!” she recalls.
Seeing life through the eyes of her toddlers is all the more wondrous to her because it took so long to bring them into the world. Pagonis always knew she wanted to be a mother, but after she married Michael Vosnakis in 1995, her dad passed away, which took an emotional toll, and she had two miscarriages.
“I went through five in vitros trying to get pregnant. I became very disillusioned and blamed myself,” Pagonis says. “Part of me wanted to give up. I took a few months off so my body could get strong again.”
They switched to a fertility specialist on the West Coast to escape the “factory” approach nearer to their home in Arlington, Massachusetts. Pagonis gave up all caffeine and alcohol, and changed her diet.
“I drank wheat grass juice every day for several months, and it was so gross!” she says. “I wanted to do everything I could to succeed, so I’d have no regrets.”
Nicholas and George were born in May 2006, at 32 weeks. Life became strictly scheduled, with round-the-clock breastfeeding and pumping.
“I didn’t take them out for about five months, except for doctor’s appointments,” says Pagonis. “Michael and I had always traveled at least once a year, but we haven’t gone away in three years.”
But she isn’t complaining. Recently they’ve enjoyed a hands-on family exploration class at a nearby farm.
While she’s contemplating a return to work—she’s done biochemical research, worked in human resources, and earned master’s degrees in biochemistry and international relations—it’s clear what comes first: “If you have kids, they’re your legacy, and that’s what you leave behind.”
Lobbying
Two years after graduating from Sarah Lawrence, photographer H Harrison ’06 had a light-bulb moment while submitting his black-and-white images to various galleries. He noticed something peculiar: his artist statements were becoming longer and longer, concerned more with the legal issues around artistic expression than with the art itself.
“I remember thinking, Maybe this is a sign,” says Harrison.
Harrison’s interest in freedom of expression began when he was working on ”Public/Private Spaces,” a collection of black-and-white images depicting Manhattan hotel lobbies, a project that had started as his senior thesis. When asked for permission to photograph the lobbies, the hotels sometimes refused to participate, claiming it was illegal or a post-9/11 security risk. And even when the hotels agreed, they would present Harrison with lengthy, confusing contracts that restricted his use of the images. These responses raised questions that Harrison, an emerging artist, hadn’t ever considered—what were the boundaries of his own artistic expression?
“I wanted to know my rights,” he says.
Harrison read books, talked to family friends who practiced law, and scoured artists’ forums online. He soon discovered that the dialogue between artists and the law was even more engaging than the process of making art itself.
Eventually, he began to appreciate the contracts with the hotels, because they gave him an opportunity to state explicitly his ownership and use of the photographs. But only when he took note of his own artist statements did he envision another path: law school. Last fall he enrolled at the Northeastern University School of Law, where he is deepening his knowledge of artists’ rights and intellectual property.
“At Sarah Lawrence, I was able to use art as my guidepost in every class—even math,” says Harrison. That hasn’t changed in graduate school: “Law is another one of these places that is informing my art.”
While Harrison is keeping an open mind in terms of future plans, he sees himself working directly with artists, helping them understand their legal rights.
And he continues making his own art. Harrison has declared “Public/Private Spaces” a completed body of work, but he’s still pursuing photography.
“I get darkroom access at school, which is pretty great.”