Stephanie Gowdy’s nose just kept creeping closer to her phone screen. It happened so stealthily that the young artist, just 22 at the time, didn’t notice how significantly her vision was failing until someone pointed it out. The eye appointment Gowdy thought might end with a pair of glasses, instead delivered devastating news: See a specialist; we can’t help you, you’re going blind.
Gowdy, whose world was all about what she saw and more importantly the feelings she could convey, on canvas, was shaken.
Within a month of her appointment with the eye doctor, Gowdy lost the majority of her eyesight, but surgery was able to prevent complete blindness…