Today we’d like to introduce you to Helen Joy George.
Hi, Helen Joy. It’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us. To start, could you share some of your backstory with our readers?
Sure! Thanks so much for having me. I grew up living half my life in Charleston, SC, and half traveling all over the United States with my dad, who built hurricane and tornado-proof dome homes. My dad was a well-known Folly Beach surfer and the South East State champion 5 years in a row. He also built the famous Eye of the Storm building on Sullivan’s Island, SC, for my grandparents. I grew up the oldest of 5 girls. I was always imagining, creating, and writing when I wasn’t taking care of babies. When I was 10, I made an entire newspaper for my neighbors, including all the different sections, including “Letters to the editor.” My childhood was incredibly adventurous and incredibly complex. My father suffered from undiagnosed Bipolar Disorder, and we spent a lot of time living in trucks, trailers, motels, and barns while he tried to make a living. My mother homeschooled us and did an excellent job encouraging reading, writing, and learning about history. I spent a lot of my school time reading autobiographies and loved getting to know all the aspects of what makes up a life. When I was 13, my father attempted suicide and sustained a traumatic brain injury. This event caused a shattering of the family I grew up with, and I found myself living with my mother’s parents in Hendersonville, NC when high school started.
I spent my high school years enjoying the Western North Carolina mountains and went on a full violin scholarship to Erskine College in Due West, SC. Halfway through college, I married a man I had loved since I was 14. The summer after we got married, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder like my father. Marriage was really challenging but we went on to have 3 children, two boys and a girl. My daughter Lucy is named after my Great Aunt Lucy, who is well known and remembered from Sullivan’s Island (she surfed into her 90s)!
I have always loved photographing people. I used my mom’s film camera to shoot the film in college. We bought my first DSLR digital camera with our wedding money, and I took off. I was obsessed. I’ve always loved art, but I am a terrible and impatient painter, so photography became the medium through which I could finally express myself. I would tape garbage bags to my windows and photograph my friends lit just by a tiny lamp; I played with shadows and stories and learned a lot by trial and error.
I graduated from Erskine in 2007 and moved back to Hendersonville, where I started a photography business. In 2009, I had my first baby. Dealing with unmedicated Bipolar Disorder, new motherhood, a marriage that felt impossible, a self-owned business, and so many creative ideas, made life incredibly difficult. I found myself one day writing about it all on a blog. It differed from the blogs most people wrote at the time, which were full of highlights and beautiful meals. I posted raw and unfiltered thoughts about life and found instant connections with people from all walks of life. Blogging became the place I was finally seen, the way I processed, and a way to reach more people.
From 2009-2016, I had babies, deepened my roots in the community, made beautiful pictures, and wrote about it all. Somewhere in there, I transferred to writing on Instagram as peoples’ attention spans got shorter, and I got more tired. In 2011, I switched from primarily photographing weddings and babies in flower fields to birth photography. I loved the raw, unposed documentary way that birth unfolded. I loved the intimacy of holding space for folks experiencing various emotions. I just loved telling these incredible stories that were happening. This birth work transferred into my portrait work, and I wanted to tell every story unposed and layered.
In 2016, I found myself at the end of myself, and after dropping my kids at school (and saying “great” to everyone who passed me in the parking lot when they asked how my day was going), I committed myself to the hospital for suicidal ideation. This began a year-long battle to stay alive in the failing mental healthcare system at that time.
In 2019 after healing quite a bit, I published my first book Yellow Tulips about my childhood and my struggles with mental health. In 2021 I finally left my marriage and found myself thriving mentally. I published my second book in January of this year (The Unraveling | Musings about codependency, deconstruction, divorce, hope, and rebirth.
Thanks for sharing that. So, you could tell us a bit more about your work. I am a photographer, storyteller, and writer. I specialize in black-and-white photos of real life. I specialize in telling stories that hold hope but also nod at sorrow. I am proud of my latest book, The Unraveling| Musings about codependency,
deconstruction, divorce, hope, and rebirth. It is small but mighty. I loved combining my love of portraits with words whittled down to say just what I wanted to say.
Through many closed doors and supporting my family in a post covid, high-inflation world, I have recently rebranded myself. Because of the on-call schedule, I can’t do births anymore; hundreds of notable photographers are taking the baby in flower field photos and for a way cheaper price. This has brought me to really step into my gifts and launching a new vein of my business called Legacy Library which is to ultimately come into homes and help people preserve their memories. This could be as simple as being hired hourly to go through old photos and cull the very best ones, digitize and write about them, and create a website where family members can view or download. It could also be dealing with digital clutter like helping moms print their family photos which for a lot of people feels like an impossible task. For my generation of mothers, our baby’s photos are on old dusty computers or pixelated on Facebook. I can also offer heirloom sessions that preserve what a season of life felt like versus what it looked like: your grandmother’s worn apron, your father in his worn chair, barefoot grandbabies at their great-grandmother’s camp meeting. I can also offer my writing in a way that can take someone’s life story and weave the best parts into a book for future generations.
The crisis has affected us all in different ways. How has it affected you, and can you share any important lessons or epiphanies with us? COVID was notable for several things. First, it slowed us down and made us look to simple pleasures (which is always good). For me, COVID-19 was a litmus test for a healthy family, and being stuck in our home with little interaction with others proved that my marriage needed to end. Covid made us braver and less complacent. Covid has also made us incredibly flakey. No one wants to commit; no one wants to show up. If I invite 10 people to a gathering, half of the people will cancel at the last minute. Covid took a high-paced society and helped them say no, and now we can’t stop saying no.
I have noticed stark changes in the past year—more disconnection and dissatisfaction. I started a business this fall called The Gathering Place. My goal was to connect people with real-life connection opportunities. I hosted
workshops, art classes, yoga, and day retreats. But guess what? Everyone thought it was a fantastic idea, but people didn’t show up so that business closed this spring.
Through COVID, a mental breakdown, and a divorce, I have found myself at a place where I have found out what I am really good at, which is my legacy work.
Pricing:
- $40 an hour starting price for memory organizing/digitizing
- $500 for a family session
- $7,000 for an autobiography
Contact Info:
- Website: www.legacylibraryofwnc.com and www.helenjoy.com
- Instagram: @helenjoygeorge
- helenjgeorge@gmail.com
