Kirk Chernansky is an alumna of the University of Kansas, School of Design. Following graduation, she worked for 15 years in advertising art direction that took her to New York where she honed conceptual and design skills at the School of Visual Arts. In 1995, she left the for-profit business world, made the leap to social work, acquiring a master’s degree from the University of Chicago, and in 2007, began taking courses at Northwestern in art therapy to bridge the two paths. Chernansky’s artwork is an important component of her writing. The result is a combination of her two careers using the skills and tools of a commercial artist in her visuals that accompany her writing to enhance a narrative story. Themes often reflect a synthesis of opposites that is inspired by her previous work as a dialectical behavior therapist and personal experience of coping with change.