Etta Worthington, writer/director/producer, and her daughter, Ashley Simone, actress/dancer/chef, have very intentionally crafted successful lives in the arts, although their definition of success may not be the norm.
For more than four decades, Etta has cobbled together a series of odd jobs in an effort to pay the bills while pursuing her passion for storytelling. As such, she has served as a role model for Ashley, who is equally adept at juggling jobs while pursuing her love of performing.
“We’re hustlers,” said Ashley. “The typical 9-to-5 schedule is scary to me. I only know how to be creative and to pursue my creativity in art. That’s what really seems safe to me.”
“We both have a fear of being trapped in something that is soul-crushing,” said Etta.
That in part explains their planned departure from the area. At the end of this month, Ashley and Etta will start new life chapters when they pull up long-time roots in Oak Park and Forest Park and replant themselves in Boquete, Panama.
The move will mark significant personal milestones – Etta’s 75th birthday and Ashley’s 50th. While their reasons for moving were initially spurred by the political situation in the U.S., they both express great excitement about their new home.
“I was inconsolable after the [presidential] election – I just broke down—and I decided that I just couldn’t stay in the country,” said Ashley.
“Panama seemed like a safe place. We both need to recover. When Trump was elected the first time, I devoted five years of my life to activism. I got burned out. I just didn’t think I could do it again,” said Etta.
Their life as artists
Both have encountered speedbumps along the road to realizing their dreams. Etta, the rare artist who has developed both hemispheres of her brain (and has the MBA to prove it), briefly put aside her artistic aspirations following a divorce in her early 30’s. As a single mother, she took seriously her responsibility to provide for her young daughter. She held management positions in medical and educational textbook publishing and lucked into a job as a print broker.
But her need to express herself was overwhelming and she eventually started waking at 4:30 a.m. to carve out time to write and run before getting Ashley up for school and heading off to work.
With a desire to create a community of local writers, Etta in 1993 founded the highly regarded River Oak Arts literary organization. ROA offered an interdisciplinary lecture series, writing workshops and readings by such notables as U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins and novelists Rick Moody and Richard Ford. The nonprofit organization also published River Oak Review, a literary journal that showcased the work of established and emerging writers.
At the height of its run, ROA was offering programs in Chicago and Evanston as well as Oak Park. Etta was tapping both hemispheres of her brain to keep the organization alive by managing its finances while editing the journal, planning special events and preparing newsletters – all while maintaining teaching gigs at Triton College and Columbia College Chicago. But funding issues forced the organization to shut down in 2003.
Etta pivoted to filmmaking, a medium she had been passionate about in her 20s. She wrote, directed and produced several short films. She commemorated a mid-life crisis by producing her first feature length documentary, “50 at 50,” a compilation of 50 things she had never tried before the age of 50. The film included scenes of her rollerblading, salsa dancing, jet skiing, getting tattooed and shaving her head.
“My mom has always done so much. It’s inspiring –and daunting,” said Ashley.
Ashley, who inherited her mother’s boundless energy, spent much of her childhood dancing and performing at the Academy of Music and Movement in Oak Park. She discovered that she came alive when on camera.
“I was allowed to be creative and felt very supported by my parents, both of whom are artists,” said Ashley.
That support was tested when, the day after her 22nd birthday, Ashley ran off and joined the circus, literally. After touring with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey for two years, she returned home and applied her abundant chutzpah to finding acting jobs.
She racked up a few small roles in short films and had a bit part as a dancer in Johnny Depp’s “Public Enemies.” Appearing next to Depp and Marion Cotillard in a scene filmed at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom, she had to dye her flaming red hair brown to ensure she didn’t upstage the stars.
Like her mother, Ashley has taken on sometimes mundane jobs, including bartending, waitressing, serving as a barista, modeling at trade shows and catering special events, to support her creative endeavors.
After several years of trial and error, Ashley realized that her true calling was cooking and sharing her love of food and hospitality. Combining her interests in performing and cooking, she created in 2010 an online cooking show called Foodgasm, produced by Etta, for which she dressed in her signature 1940’s pin-up themed attire. The show includes 15 short episodes and is still available on AFoodgasm.com and YouTube.
She also launched a catering business and graduated from culinary school. During COVID, she baked for neighbors and friends, coining the endeavor “Ashley’s Daily Breads and Sunday Suppers.”
The mother/daughter duo have lived together since COVID. In conversation, they finish each other’s sentences.
“We find each other entertaining. She laughs at my jokes. And we respect each other’s talents,” said Etta.
The Panama move
In Panama, both plan to explore creative opportunities in Panama and enjoy Boquete’s thriving arts scene—and its eternal spring. Ashley hopes to pursue culinary opportunities and perhaps resurrect her cooking show. Etta, for whom storytelling is at the root of everything she does, plans to take time to figure out how to share some of her personal history, through writing and film. She’s exploring podcast possibilities and a stop- animation project.
Needless to say, Etta and Ashley will continue juggling – they’re experts by now –
to support their insatiable creativity.