Ryan Metlen remembers what it felt like to be lost. Depression and anxiety were two direct effects of his lack of direction. It’s these feelings that helped the Saugus resident finish his recently published book, “Ewe.”

“Ewe” is the quirkily illustrated story of a sheep with a tendency to get lost. Just as in the age old parable of The Bible, the sheep is found by his good shepherd.

While sitting at a local bakery, Metlen, 32, recently described a time when he felt like Ewe.

“There is that moment where you realize you went the wrong direction and you were either listening to the wrong people or the wrong voices in your head,” he said.

“And there’s that next moment where you say, ‘I just can’t figure it out,’” he said. “I’m lost and I’m frustrated.”

Lost and found
Metlen’s art pursuit began when he was an elementary school student who won an award for drawing Smokey the Bear.

Metlen headed to college at the California Institute of the Arts for character animation.

But by junior year, life seemed to be falling apart. That’s when his “crisis of faith” hit him hard, he said.

“I was fighting depression and anxiety,” he said. “I would wake up at five in the morning and I would just have to run because basically I knew the relationship (with a girlfriend) and other things I had invested in were falling apart.”

Art had become about him and what he could get out of it.

“I looked for answers in self-expression and eventually just sort of wound up dry and alone,” he said.

He was alone, until God found him, he said.

“The only people who were willing to put up with me were some great people that God put in my life that knew Him,” Metlen said. “I ended up figuring out that Jesus is who he says he is.”

One of those “great people,” Heidi Mueller, eventually became his wife. After emerging from his crisis of faith, Metlen published his first book, “The Voice.”

“It’s about a guy on a boat and he thinks he’s doing really great,” he said. “He’s fishing, doing his own thing and all of a sudden things go awry and his boat sinks. God saves him out of that.”  

Reality check
Metlen began to experience some success with his comic artwork prior to college graduation.

“I had some success with the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal,” he said. “I thought I was a real big shot.”

It didn’t last long. After graduation, Metlen turned down a job that seemed too small for his illustration and comic aspirations at the time.

He ended up spraying trees for a local landscape company to support his family.

“During that time, I submitted my artwork to comic strips, to the syndicates, for two-and-a-half years just over and over again,” he said.

He waited to hear back, expecting success and yet receiving nothing. Then, he gave up.

“I said, ‘I’ll do anything now because spraying trees and dragging hoses up slopes and digging holes with a shovel is going to burn me out,’” he said. “It was just not how I saw my future when I was in school.”

God heard him again, he said. The next day, Metlen was offered a job at Gary Horton’s thriving landscape development company.

It was by no means an artistic position but it was an important lesson in disguise.

“I learned something they teach you in business school: If you want to sell something, you have to think about what people want,” he said. “So that changes how you start creating artwork.”

His art had to become about two things: God and other people, he said.

“It had to make other people happy (and) teach them about Jesus,” he said.

It was out of these lessons that Metlen could finish “Ewe” with purpose. After finding the unfinished book in a cardboard box in his garage, he completed the piece a year-and-half later and in October it was published by Paulist Press.

Metlen also recently signed a contract for syndication of his comic strip, “Hope and Death.”

Lessons from Ewe
“I guess the whole point of ‘Ewe’ is that when we stop dealing with the world on our terms, and by our strength, well that’s when God shows up with His plan,” he said.  

His revelations might sound simple, but the process of discovery was a trek, he said.

“I had no idea how hard it was,” he said, referring to success in art. “I had no idea what I was getting into. It’s been nine years and I’ve just finally broken through.”

It’s a lesson he’ll be reminded of every time he opens his books to read to others.

Metlen’s books can be found or ordered at local bookstores or www.helloewe.blogspot.com.