No. 007 • Dolly

August 25, 2026. Dolly Parton has died.

When I was finishing out my bachelors degree in 2009, I visited a counselor for the last time to discuss my credits and make sure everything looked appropriate for graduation. I had a single semester left, courses already chosen and schedule set. As we talked through all the courses I had completed, she let me know I was set to receive my degree in Advertising. I also would receive a marketing concentration (whatever that means). And then she said something that surprised me. “You could do one more fine arts course and receive a fibers minor.” I politely declined. Why would I need that? My course load was already packed. I wasn’t adding on. Somewhere around that time I had applied for a hands-on course with an advertising agency. They would take designers and copywriters, pair them, and work them for a semester in real-world applications. I applied for the designer role. Each applicant was to submit an essay on why they were applying and a design portfolio. When the professor reviewed everyone’s submissions, she sat me down and told me my design work wasn’t strong enough. She suggested I enter the course as a copywriter. I politely declined.

I took a fine arts course every semester in college. Drawing I. Drawing II. Design I. Design II. Metalsmithing & Jewelry I. Metalsmithing & Jewelry II. Fibers I. Fibers II. Art appreciation. Art history. Anything I could get into. Not because I believed I would do anything with them. For sanity. They were my fun courses. With the people I enjoyed being surrounded by. Seeing what others were creating. How they thought about what they were creating. Professors who had careers as artists, teaching us their techniques. I respected every single one of those teachers. Admittedly, more so than any of my business or marketing professors. Those courses kept me going to campus, and kept my brain working in the way it likes to work.

Artists are poor. They are depressed. They struggle for success. If success does come, it comes late in life. Or it doesn’t come at all. Art isn’t what the successful independent person does. I immediately started working and attended community college out of high school. A collage survived. Finished my basics. Needed out of that city. When I started at UNT I thought…dermatology. That’s success. I’ll just do pre-med basics and see what happens. I hit chemistry and it was game over. So then I looked into communication design. But I was so behind. I found advertising and marketing. My completed courses lined up and I could finish on a legitimate timeline. That’s fine. Graduated. Kept working. Created a finger painting in 2010 when I was poor and couldn’t afford brushes. A few minor things in between. A painting in 2026.

You know the mood of the stranger walking into the coffee shop before they say a word. You see the pattern of what’s happening and understand the cause. What actions are going to lead where. Why people do what they do. Predict the effects. Understand themes. Reasons. Irrationality. You are exhausted. You are alone. And you don’t understand why others don’t see the same way you do. Or maybe they just aren’t saying it. And maybe that’s even worse. Seeing deeply will cost you.

People see deeply, in different capacities. It’s rarer that someone can translate it. That’s a complicated gift. That is the artist. Asking others to try to see too. To understand the what and the how and the why. It’s reaching out and asking “Will you feel what I feel?” Producing something physical from the un-physical isn’t an easy thing. Producing something physical from the un-physical that translates should be impossible. I love pop music. On the surface, easy. Simple to understand. Catchy and unchallenging melodies. Choruses that can be sung back after just a few listens. Stuck in your head throughout the day. Then there’s a moment. The song has been on repeat. And it transforms. It becomes something else. Something deeper. A good pop song will do that. And that moment is so, so good.

I won’t claim to be a Dolly superfan. Fan, yes. “Two Doors Down” was on repeat when I was younger. It helped put me in a good mood when I was down. I never skipped her interviews. I recently baked one of her chocolate cakes. I bought it because I like Dolly. But more than tapping my feet to her music and liking her personality, I respect her. She grew up poor. Worked on a farm, worked herself out of it with music. Hit after hit after hit. “Coat of Many Colors.” “Jolene.” “I Will Always Love You.” “9 to 5.” We all know them. And then depression. Six months of waking up feeling dead. Her own words. A story of a handgun in the nightstand, then in her hand, interrupted by the dog. Dolly was someone who could see deeply. And even she paid the toll. The collapse produced nothing. She made it to the other side, and wrote for forty more years.

She will be remembered for sharing joy. As she should be. But joy isn’t the absence of depth. She was a songwriter and an artist who saw deeply. That came first.

Seeing will cost you. It will cost you whether or not you make the things. Make the things.