There are the 40 she puts in Mondays through Fridays as a New York City nanny, and there are the 40 she logs in while working on her weekend wedding photography business. Kara, an upbeat woman with baby-bouncy curls who was up until 2 a.
Kara, who spent the first 14 years of her life in the tiny farm town of Celina, Ohio, and her high school years in the not-noticeably larger Norwalk, Ohio, is one of five children. While the rest of the family was showing off hogs and horses trying to win ribbons at the county fair, Kara was drawing.
Her sketchpad and pencil were her constant companions. Her parents, who are ultra-conservative, were running a non-profit nondenominational Christian ministry out of their house. Kara got her first job at 9. It was a part-time position helping her brother with his paper route.
I was in public school from grades two through five and was getting free lunches. So she did. It was easy to work 40 hours a week, Kara says, because by then she was being home-schooled, which continued through eighth grade.
She was devastated, not to mention furious, when her parents decided to move the family to Norwalk. She changed her mind when she saw a photo I took and told me to focus on photography instead of drawing. Somehow things worked out and Kara, armed with scholarships and loans, became a full-time student. As was her custom, she worked her way through college, taking on a variety of jobs that included being a resident assistant in the dorm and working in a bed and breakfast.
