CARISSA DOIG
Open Your Own Doors
story by HEATHER STEINBERGER photos by PAUL NURNBERG
When Carissa Doig’s life was upended due to multiple sclerosis, she could have surrendered to the diagnosis. Instead, she made a promise: She would fight.
What followed was a remarkable journey of healing and transformation. Today, Carissa is a national aerial arts champion and the visionary behind Creations Aerial Arts and the U.S. Aerial Arts Organization. She’s also a teacher and mentor, and youth athletes couldn’t ask for a more passionate or powerful advocate.
Carissa grew up in Southington, Connecticut. Although she gave college a try at the age of 18, she quickly discovered it wasn’t for her.
“I dropped out almost immediately,” says Carissa, now 41. “I wanted something more hands-on. I started working in cosmetics as a makeup artist, which I found to be very artistic and free.”
This career path took her all across the United States, and she regularly commuted between her Connecticut home and New York City. She says that she soon tired of watching friends get married and start families while she remained single — and always in the car.
As she was driving one day, Carissa heard an ad for the Connecticut School of Broadcasting, now known as the CSB Media Arts Center. She says she immediately went home and told her mother she was going back to school.
“My mom was skeptical about school, because I wasn’t very good at that,” Carissa says, laughing. “But this was different. It was trade school. Those days were also the wild west of social media, and I liked computers.”
Carissa applied for and received a scholarship, and she secured an internship at “The Rock” 106.9 WCCC. This legendary classic rock radio station in Hartford, Connecticut, once was the home to Howard Stern.
“They put me in charge of social media,” Carissa says. “They wanted to keep me but didn’t have a job for me, so I went on to a different station. Then they called me back, and I became one of the first digital marketing directors in the country.”
When word rippled through the team that the station was going to be sold, Carissa and her boyfriend (now her husband) decided the time was right to make a move. He had connections in a coastal South Carolina city called Beaufort.
“I fell in love with it immediately,” Carissa remembers. “We stayed in a beautiful little white cottage in the historic district, and we got engaged on the stairs on our second visit. We got married on August 31, 2014, on those same stairs.”
The couple lived in Habersham for nearly 10 years before purchasing a farm in Hampton County a year and a half ago. Carissa remained focused on her career, working as a marketing director for six different radio stations. One day, everything changed.
“I thought I’d be in media forever,” she says. “Then I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.”
Carissa says she received the same diagnosis 10 years earlier but was not convinced. An aunt had MS that was much more advanced, and her experience did not seem to be the same. So, Carissa carried on and became adept at hiding her symptoms.
“I got headaches, and my limbs felt tingly and weird,” she says. “I brushed it off. Then, 10 years later, my vision started to go. I couldn’t see out of my right eye, and there was pain behind it. It got worse. I was stubborn, but then I started to lose the vision in my left eye.”
Scans at Beaufort Memorial Hospital confirmed the MS diagnosis, and Carissa began infusion treatment. Unfortunately, she was in full-blown relapse.
“It was late for that, and the relapse got bad fast,” she says. “I lost my vision for three months. The right side of my body went next. It just wouldn’t cooperate.”
As determined as ever, Carissa decided she was not going to let the MS win. She told her husband she was going to fight it, and the damage would not be permanent.
“He didn’t know what to think, but the relapse did pass,” she says.
As she recovered, Carissa decided to open a sip-and-paint business in Habersham called Creations & Libations. Unfortunately, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, it meant the end of her shop.
Carissa saw this as just another challenge to meet head on. As she searched for a new path forward, she spotted an ad for aerial arts on Facebook — and she fell in love again.
“I would have spent all my time in the studio, but I did take a job in media for a while,” she recalls. “Then I got hired as an instructor, and I started competing in aerial arts as well.
“I didn’t like that, but I wanted to see if I could do it,” she continues. “I was older, and I had a disability. I wondered if I could be as good as anyone else.”
Carissa’s answer came in 2021 when she earned a spot on Team USA as a para athlete and won a gold medal.
She also served on several boards in the aerial arts world, and she discovered that more could be done to ensure that children have safe spaces for practice and competition. She decided to start a new organization for aerial arts competitors called the U.S. Aerial Arts Organization (USAAO).
“I was teaching kids in Beaufort at the time, and they kept saying, ‘Coach, just do it!’” Carissa says with a chuckle. “In six months, I wrote down everything I thought could be done better.”
Carissa noted that miscommunication can happen in studios regarding what is appropriate with youth athletes, particularly when circus arts are involved. In addition to safe, youth-only spaces, she also wanted to design a scoring system that prioritized clarity and fairness.
“At first I was scared to speak up about it, but I had committee members back me up,” she says. “Kids are the future — they are athletes, and this is a legit sport that I believe is mainstream bound, so this is important.”
USAAO gained 900 followers on Instagram in just four months, and now it is nearing 1,000 (@usaerialarts). It has 19 studio members and 10 judges, who are gearing up for the USAAO Team USA Qualifying Championships on October 4-5 in Melbourne, Florida, and their first Open International Competition in late January 2026 in Aruba.
“Aruba is our first international member,” Carissa says. “International aerial arts is big now, so we needed to expand. Michael Ball, the USAAO vice president, was the first person I called. He was my ‘trauma bud’ from a federation board in the past, and he is very committed. He is focusing on our international membership.”
Despite this success, Carissa felt a piece of the puzzle was still missing. She decided to open her own studio: Creations Aerial Arts at 39 Persimmon St., Suite 404, in Bluffton.
“I wasn’t moving enough, and this keeps me healthy,” she said. “Aerial arts are painful. I need to feel it and work through it in a healthy way, turning it into something aesthetically gorgeous.
“I love the adrenaline too,” she continues. “That drew me in further when I was learning.”
Now, Carissa is sharing what she has learned with the next generation. Creations Aerial Arts just recently concluded its Cirque Arts Camp, which gave children ages 8-12 opportunities to design their own aerial arts show.
Little Aerialists for ages 6-8, the Youth Aerial Arts Club for ages 9-12 and the Teen Aerial Arts Club for ages 13-17 all kicked off on July 21. This fall, Carissa will kick off a Performance Club, and a Competition Team also is available by invitation only.
Although these programs are designed for their specific age groups, Carissa says there is a strong one-on-one element with her instruction. While she plans her lessons ahead of time, she also recognizes that each person is unique.
“I work with each person to understand how I might need to change things to find that sweet spot so they don’t get either bored or discouraged,” she explained. “I also provide a pathway for them to progress, so they understand what they need to do to get from point A to B.”
Surrounded by equipment such as lollipop lyra, aerial hoops, aerial hammock, and aerial silks, Carissa says she is grateful to have the opportunity to focus on teaching children — in part due to her good relationship with Aerial Elements, another aerial arts studio in the same neighborhood.
“We’ve decided to work together because, when businesses work together, they succeed,” she explains.
She also is partnering with the Port Royal YMCA to launch the YMCAerialist program later this summer. And, she plans to be back in Beaufort, teaching aerial arts north of the Broad, very soon.
At press time, Carissa was preparing for the USAAO virtual competition on August 1-15. During this time, athletes will compete virtually via Google Meets; the judges will watch them in real time, and then the athletes will submit their recordings for scoring.
“In a virtual competition, the athletes do their routines in their regular studios and still have a chance to understand scoring, get feedback from the judges, and prep for qualifiers,” Carissa says. “Everyone starts with 150 points. They have to score 90 points to qualify for USAAO Team USA.”
Carissa says she never expected to be in such a demanding leadership role. But this is heart-driven work, and she has found her calling.
“When you lose your vision and then get it back, everything looks different,” she reflects. “The negative stuff is just a stain on the carpet.”
Carissa has a tattoo of a key. It means, simply, “I open my own doors.” Now, through Creations Aerial Arts and USAAO, she’s helping the next generation do the same.
For more information about Creations Aerial Arts, visit creationsaerialarts.com. To learn more about the USAAO, visit
usaao.org.
