Changed for the Better, episode 47

Michael DelPup

While I consider all of my guests to be very special people, I am particularly thrilled to introduce Michael J. DelPup (class of 2009), the reason for which I will get to momentarily.

Full disclosure, Michael is a bit camera shy, but I somehow managed to convince him to sit and chat with me.

In high school, Michael was someone who liked to dip his toes in the Thespian waters, but always stayed far away from the spotlight. His contributions were in the wings and behind the scenes: constructing and painting sets, ushering, running crew, graphic design, etc. He eventually found his groove in Thespians during his senior year for FAME, with my guests Stephanie Lauredent-Diasio (episode 5), Kristen Santos-Latrenta (episode 7) and Alex Domini (episode 20). He also loved capturing candid moments from behind his camera. More on that later…

After graduation, he attended Rockland Community College’s where he continued his artistic journey, then transferred down south to complete his training at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), graduating Magna Cum Laude with a BFA in Graphic Design. Upon his return to New York, he landed a junior designer job at OffWhite Design, where he has spent the last eight years. Now, he is a Design Director, making contributions in art design and marketing as he leads a team to create package designs for the kinds of products we all use every day.

The reason I am so excited to feature Michael here is that when his day job is done, he often takes on side design projects for those in need. Back in February, I decided to do a little upgrade for this podcast. I sought out a new theme song, composed and performed by my episode 8 guest Brianna Knight, which became the foundation for the change. For the logo, I had reached out to my social media universe, and his sister Kristina had reached out to him (he’s not on Facebook) letting him know that I was looking for a graphic designer. He sent me an email asking if I was interested in looking at his ideas, which of course, I was.

Soon after, Michael literally sent me dozens of design ideas to choose from. It was an embarrassment of riches that absolutely blew me away. There were so many different ideas to sift through. I had to figure out what spoke to me the most.

Michael has an artist’s heart. Way back in high school, when he was drawn to Thespians, it was the visual art and tech aspect that attracted him most. Not only did he carry that into his career as a graphic designer and art director, but he has also cultivated his passion for photography. When we did FAME, he would spend his time backstage with his camera taking all sorts of candid shots of his friends doing the things they did best. Now, he is developing a “secret” Instagram page that he is starting to assemble to show his work.

It’s different than working on a computer all day. Every time I go to a new city, I bring my camera.

Enjoy a little FAME 2009 photo gallery, courtesy of Michael:

Finding a safe space

Looking back on your high school experience is often tough. There are often so many demons and traumas that many people would rather leave in the past.

Michael’s love for being behind-the-scenes stemmed from his quiet nature back in school. Like so many kids, he struggled with significant mental health issues. He had transferred into high school from a Catholic school with one other friend, so other than his older siblings, he didn’t have a built-in social circle. In addition, he had experienced significant bullying inside and outside of school:

I felt like I had no safe space, so it was very difficult. That’s why I felt like I had to hop around between groups of people until I found a solid group, which were a lot of Thespians. Michael had a difficult time navigating his adolescent self.

We talked about the difference between how we view ourselves and how others see us from the outside. Often, there is a huge difference between those perspectives. As self-critical as he was (and is), he shared how he was flipping through his senior yearbook and was surprised to see all of the kind and generous messages his peers wrote to him.

It was hard accepting who I was, or trying to figure out who I was at such a young age; I just couldn’t do it. Being shy didn’t help either.

For Michael, the theater became his safe space in school.

I got to express myself through art and creating the sets. Just having friends around, a community that we all got together and more or less joked around all the time (and took things seriously) to create something amazing; that was definitely so helpful. I remember coming out of my shell in Thespians.

He recalled our Senior Pow Wow, a tradition we have at the end of the spring musical, where the seniors and I gather for a time to discuss some important moments they remembered from their time in Thespians. What was most remarkable and special for him was having the confidence to speak those experiences out loud.

I still remember it. I just remember smiling most of the time.

Lessons Learned

It's okay to express yourself. 

Being a designer, this is one of his mantras. One of the reasons why he was so excited about working on the logo for this podcast is because he was able to connect a part of himself with the work.

With all of the concepts, I got to put myself into some of those designs. It was a way to create something for you, for something that I was a part of, and I definitely took that from Thespians.

For that show, Michael designed the graphic art for the playbill cover and the show t-shirt, which I still have. He also painted a large show sign, which is still mounted in front of our sound booth. Now, when I go back in to theater and pass it by, I will always think about Michael.

Adult challenges

For all of the emotional challenges and self-doubt that adolescence put in his path, Michael has become much more confident in his design ability as an adult. He still views everything with a critical eye, but I chalk that up to being an artist; nothing we ever do passes muster 100%. We will always go back and find things we would change about the work we do, no matter how “perfect” others might find it.

Despite his artistic and personal growth, Michael has had some struggles in his adulthood. He’s had a couple of relationships-gone-wrong situations and has had to start over more than once which is very expensive. I’m tired of buying couches, man. He’s finally living on his own, which is giving him the opportunity to live his life on his own terms: traveling, trying new experiences, figuring out how to love myself first before I can love anybody else.

Mental health is something Michael struggled with during high school and continues to work on to this day.

Dealing with all those past traumas; should I have gone to therapy? That’s another thing I should have told my younger self: go to therapy, get a therapist, do something. That would have been so helpful because now I’m dealing with my past.

Trying to figure out my likes and dislikes still, all the different hobbies I like; picking up a camera, maybe I’ll try pottery soon, or something else completely different. Sometimes I get burnt out doing graphic design all day. I’ve put in my 10,000 hours of graphic design and now, I just want to do something different. Try to work with my hands – something.

I understand this sentiment completely. There’s something about being human that seems to demand a variety of experience to feel content. We spend our careers getting really good at what we do, then when we achieve that, we start asking ourselves, “what’s next?” Creative people feel that particularly deeply, because our brains spend so much time dreaming up different permutations and possibilities of different outcomes. We seek new ways to exercise our creative chops and it is easy to feel like we are getting into a rut when our jobs demand the same patterns every day. We get to a point where we start to wonder what else is out there for us to explore, and it can be frustrating when we don’t see those possibilities in our immediate view.

The good news is that being a working professional comes with a healthy paycheck. Now that he is spending more time on his own, he is free to explore those things more, through travel and picking up whatever new hobbies that pique his interest. Since his job is remote, he can work, quite literally, from anywhere in the world, and he takes advantage of that when he can. While he is in the constant, exhausting process of evaluating and rebuilding his life, Michael is also free to discover new doors to open as he is ready. Perhaps this is his second adolescence, where he can connect to his more carefree self, without the looming shroud of teenage anxiety.

Sage advice

As he looks back to his younger, more carefree self, he wonders why he was so worried all the time. There was less responsibility to be sure, and he was well-liked by his friends. Of course, that’s not how he felt at the time; his anxious emotional state tended to be in the driver’s seat, particularly before he settled into his group of friends in his senior year. I asked Michael what he might tell his younger self to help ease the way:

Calm down! Anything I did, I was overthinking it. Just relax – it really isn’t that serious. Make as many friends as you possibly can. I think that’s the key; it’s a good community and high school should be about that. You’re learning how to talk to people and friends and you see them everyday for four years; try to make friends with them.

He also offered some gems for today’s high school students:

• Like who you want to like.
• Be who you want to be. Or, try to figure out who you want to be.
• You’re going to be judged forever; for how you do something, what you do, so as a high schooler, just do it. Do whatever you want to do and try not to let other people’s opinions of you bog you down.
• All your zits and bad haircuts: that will pass, so don’t worry about that.

Michael’s self-care practices

1. I work out every day. That definitely has helped. He got into the practice when he worked in Brooklyn and he was walking a mile to and from the subway every day. When his job went remote, all that walking stopped. Sitting in front of a computer all day, I feel like I need to move. He got into doing workout challenges with his friends, boosting each other up, which tapped into the community aspect of life that he valued so much.
2. Reading. While he admits he wasn’t much of a reader in high school, he has taken to reading self-help books as an adult. It’s given me a chance to think about my past life through my own eyes and see what someone else’s opinion on how to move forward that can help and make a difference.
3. Try different hobbies. Expressing yourself in different ways, other than your main job, it’s another avenue that can help me be who I want to be or figure out what else I want to do.