When her children began calling her on Saturday, lawyer Sasha Phillips was in Arizona, working pro bono to represent immigrants trying to enter America legally.
Aleksandra “Sasha” Phillips, 42, of Mt. Lebanon, a mother of four and an attorney with Reed Smith, listened as her children told her about the killings that day at Tree of Life Congregation in Squirrel Hill.
“I am dealing with a situation where I am sad for my clients and what they are going through, and my children started calling because they have friends who attend that congregation and another one here in Mt. Lebanon, and they were sharing this horrific news,” she recalled.
While many miles away separating her from her home, “The best way I knew how to cope with the stress and the sadness and the horror was to sit down and draw, and that’s what I did.”
An attorney by trade, Ms. Phillips’ undergraduate and master’s degrees are in art. She always travels with markers, paints and a sketchbook. She drew a Pittsburgh hero, Mister Rogers, in front of a Tree of Life symbol, head in hand and the other hand holding onto his Daniel Tiger puppet. She posted her drawing to Facebook a little after 1 p.m. on Sunday, with a caption noting that the synagogue is in Fred Rogers’ neighborhood and invoked his mother’s “Look for the helpers” quote.
She wrote, in part, “This is one of those times that looking is not enough, you have to BE one of those HELPERS, in every way you can — by stopping hateful speech in its tracks, by voting, by being heard, by reaching out to support those who are being persecuted. You have to do this with light and love in your heart. Because ‘the only thing evil can’t stand is forgiveness.’
“Wish we paid more attention to Mr. Rogers.”
On Tuesday afternoon, the image had been shared more than 15,000 times.
“Art is the only common language that everyone can understand,” Ms. Phillips said. “I am blown away by how many people of all walks of life and political affiliations wrote to me and said how much the drawing expressed what they were feeling.”
The quote about “helpers” came to mind after seeing YoYo Ma at a recent summer concert. The cellist and friend of Mr. Rogers said he often turned to Bach’s cello suites as “helpers” in trying times. “For me, it’s a foolproof mechanism to deal with stress and anxiety,” she said.
She has turned to “the wonderful power” of art as a helper after suffering a concussion in a recent car accident. “I have been kind of self-medicating with art.”
With the support of Reed Smith, Ms. Phillips said she has been working on starting a wellness program using drawing, music and different art forms as an outlet for those in the pressure-packed legal profession.
An inaugural exhibition is in the works, with more to come, that would showcase their work. “This really is for everyone, to emphasize the healing power of art,” she said.
Sharon Eberson: seberson@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1960. Twitter: @SEberson_pg.
First Published: October 30, 2018, 8:08 p.m.
