Following Dreams Back Home

The mountains have called Sean Ross home again. After six years away, he recently returned to the family of friends and relatives he knows so well.

"Three years ago, I would have said there is no way I am coming home for any thing or any reason." Ross says. But the events of September 11 ended Ross' job in the Greensboro branch of Graphic Arts Inc. and created an opportunity to move back to his home on the Cherokee reservation in Cherokee, N. C.

Ross worked for a prepress design firm, based in New York City, on publications like Redbook, Cosmopolitan and Esquire. After 9/ 11, sales fell and cuts were needed. The Greensboro office was closed, and Ross was told he could relocate or take a severance package. He had heard about the advertising manager position for Harrah's Cherokee Casino and decided to "roll with the dice." After three interviews, several tests and a 45-minute interview in front of the board, Ross got the job and became part of a new program designed to entice young, successful professionals who have left the reservation to come back.

Ross was awarded the Carson Scholarship, a fund at Guilford specifically for Native American students. He knew of Cherokee students who went to Guilford, including his cousin, and was intrigued by the Quaker faith, on which the school was founded. "I saw a lot of parallels between Native American theology and Quakerism. Quakers never tried to force their religion on the native people; they wanted to co- exist and didn't really encroach. So, I thought that could be a comfortable place for me."

Ross decided to become an art major, a choice not always accepted by those around him. "I wish I had a dime for how many times I was told I was going to waste the scholarship money on an art career. I have had more doors open for me because I am an artist than anything I could have imagined."

He also wanted to play football and found, to his surprise, that his fellow students accepted this odd mix. "The artists totally accepted me as a crazy jock, and the football players totally accepted me as a crazy artist," Ross recalls. " There was no animosity at all between the two groups, which was pretty much across the board at Guilford."

Although some wanted him to change the way he did his art, Ross found a mentor and supporter in art professor Roy Nydorf. "I had different methods, techniques and a totally different style and was also using a lot of my native culture to bring that into my art," Ross says. "He encouraged that, really fed and nurtured it." Nydorf and Ross are good friends today and have become true collaborators. "He and I continue to do art together. We have power sessions sometimes all weekend where we just paint and sculpt," says Ross. "It's extremely exciting for me and an honor that he considers me a person he has gained a lot from."