Creative Struggles

If everyone is uniquely creative, why do so many of us not feel like we are, in fact creative? It’s in part because everyone struggles with creativity.

It’s easy to feel like creativity and magic just flow out of those artists, musicians, creators that we see in the history books or follow on YouTube and social media. They always seem to create the most incredible stuff, and we’re often left in awe at how simple it seems. And more often than not, we’re also left with a whole lot of self doubt as we wonder why it isn’t so easy or natural for us. But even our creative heroes have frequent bouts where they doubt their creativity and their capacity to create. And even if it seems like they have a handle on it now, we often don’t know or don’t see the struggle that they went through to connect with that well of creativity that is in us all. We’re just seeing their highlight reel, and we don’t know their story to creativity.

Like nearly all children, I was always drawing and creating, and I loved how I could create worlds by simply drawing lines and shapes that connected and merged into people, beasts, buildings, and so much more. I marveled at the magic that was mark making. I wasn’t any more gifted or talented than others my age. My creations weren’t those of a child prodigy gifted with creative powers beyond all comprehension. I was just a typical kid that loved to draw and make and create. I never really got a lot of encouragement from my parents and family, but then I never got any discouragement either. So, I never suffered the debilitating negative feedback that can crush young children and their creativity, but I also never got that uplifting feedback that made me feel like I could create anything. It was just part of fun and play, and I just went about my business and continued to draw and create for myself.

As I grew older, I began to become aware of the fact that I was pretty decent at this drawing thing, and then in an act of sibling rivalry, I had a bit of a watershed moment. I was in fifth grade, and my brother, who is two years older than I am, drew one of our cousins. I, who had recently begun to get the reputation as the family artist, just had to show up my brother, and I did. I drew the same cousin from the same photo, and I paid very close attention to getting the shapes of the eyes and the nose just right. I spent a lot of time working on it, and I even used crayon and mixed and blended the colors to get the appropriate skin tone and shading and to get the hair just right. When I was done, it was a pretty good likeness for a ten year old, and I got a lot of praise and compliments. I proudly gave the drawing to my cousin as a gift and cemented my reputation as the family artist.

Now praise can be just as stifling to creativity as outright scorn or discouragement because the need to please and get that praise becomes the primary objective — not the making or creating. Since I had gotten high praise for my portrait of my cousin, I set out to repeat that success over and over again. By the time I was in high school, I was thoroughly entrenched in drawing people, mostly portraits, as realistically as I could, and to me that’s what art was — drawing things as realistically as possible, and I was pretty good at it. I was also very comfortable with it, and I easily skated through my art classes through out my middle and high school years never being pushed out of that comfort zone. And even when I had that one teacher who challenged me my senior year, I resisted and wouldn’t allow myself to open to anything that was out of my comfort zone. I stayed in my lane, and did this thing that I was good at.

This continued all the way through college where I was always technically sound with my art and complimented for my good technique and craftsmanship year after year, but I graduated after four years not feeling like an artist — not feeling creative. Now I must say that I graduated with a degree in art education and not fine arts, but I don’t think that it would have made any difference. It was too easy to stay in my comfort zone, and in those four years there was just one art class that pushed me. Instead of resisting the push, I welcomed it, and looking back it was my favorite class because it was the one that challenged me the most. There was a lot of uncertainty, and I had to solve problems which meant that I had think like an artist and really tap into my creativity.

Despite this one spark of creative growth, I graduated and began my life and career as an art educator all the while feeling like I wasn’t creative at all. Even in my teaching, I felt like I was distanced from creativity, and though creativity was something that I looked for in the work of my students, I didn’t know how to get them to tap into it because I had never really learned how to tap into mine. I could teach them technique and how to use materials. I could teach them how to draw an accurate portrait or how to mix colors, but not how to creatively express themselves. Unfortunately, I most likely stifled a lot of my student’s creativity in those early years because I had them do projects where there was little room for individuality and creativity, and it’s something that I regret to this day.

But over the years, I began reconnecting to my creativity as I got deeper into my own artmaking, but it was a slow process. It was a long process, and though I turned to books and other resources about creativity, it was always talked about in nebulous ways. But I kept at it as I kept exploring my own artmaking, and with help of a couple of mentors, I began to really open up to my creativity. Over the years, I have discovered some concrete ways that help me tap into that creativity, but that doesn’t mean that I feel creative all the time and that I don’t struggle with it. I doubt my creativity and my capacity to create all the time. I know that it’s a constant struggle, but I now have the experience to know that creativity, like so many things in life, has its ebbs and flows. When I feel stuck or doubtful, I can turn to a range of strategies, techniques, and exercises that can get me unstuck and get me creating. I’ve tried to share many of those things through the classes and workshops that I teach and through my blog, podcast, and videos.

It has become my mission to help folks connect with their creativity, because after all, everyone struggles with their creativity, and we all can use a helping hand.

Slow Art in a Fast Food Insta Cart Time

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about slow art — art that takes time to develop and grow. It seems we’re in a time where “fast food art” is the norm, and art that is slow to develop — that is layered and nuanced isn’t.

We’re in a “I want it now!” culture with all of our modern conveniences and instant everything — text messages, social media, fast food, instant delivery, and so much more, it seems that we want the same from our art. We see our favorite artists posting new art everyday, and we get the feeling that art is this thing that can be whipped together and created in a flash. Fast Food Art. We see folks creating works right in front of our eyes everyday on social media, and it can seem like it takes no time at all. And we place those expectations on ourselves — the expectations that we need to produce art at a fast and furious pace and get it out there for the world to see. We don’t seem to realize that either it’s all an illusion, like time-lapse trickery, or the creators have a process or a gimmick or just plain years of practice to pull something off in a flash.

I can’t help think of Bob Ross painting an entire painting in less than 30 minutes, and how I sat mesmerized and astonished by the feat. But his on-air paintings never had the depth of the examples he made in his own time as inspiration for the show — some of which I got to view a few years ago. Though his process seemed spontaneous, he meticulously planned out each painting so that it could be completed in the allotted time.

Now I’m not bashing on Bob Ross or those Instagram artists. I even have my own YouTube series that I call Mixed Media Monday where I often crank out small mixed media pieces in less than 30 minutes, but I feel like these pieces are often lacking depth and richness. There is something to be said about slow art — art that takes time to build and develop.

Often this is work that is layered, or uses techniques that are slow and methodical, but all too often these pieces never make it into our social media worlds or they are translated into consumer pleasing posts and videos in a way that makes them seem much quicker and spontaneous than they really are. Every once in a while though, I need to remind myself that art doesn’t have to happen in a flash — that it is often a slow build or a gradual accumulation of small actions — that it is ok for artwork to take hours, days, weeks, and even months to develop and mature. I’m sure that you sometimes need that reminder as well as you create and make and struggle with something taking a long time.

Yes, we get more efficient over time as we learn and master our skills, but speed doesn’t need to be the goal. Things are not always better when they are done as quickly as they can be done. Something is often sacrificed.

I encourage you to ignore the voice that is telling you that quicker is better and to take some time and make some slow art.

A Deep Dive into Learning

At the beginning of December I embarked on a rather ambitious project — to learn and absorb as much as I can from folks that I admire, and of course it just had to be something that I had to do in my journal.

If you’ve been following along for the past couple of months, you might know that I am on a journey to bring change and transformation into my life. At that point, I had hit a wall, and I was feeling stuck and stagnant. To figure out a way forward, I had been gone down a bit of a rabbit hole with a bunch of podcasts, talks, speeches, and videos. I quickly discovered people that I hadn’t heard of before, and I became a fan of those who resonated with me.

But I began to realize that all of these folks — creative folks, entrepreneurs, business folks, and more — were all throwing out gem after gem of advice, motivation, and inspiration. And all for free! I had listened to so many different people that I knew that I couldn’t remember it all, and there was so much good stuff that I wanted to hold onto. So I decided that I needed to go back and listen to my favorites again, but this time I decided to take notes. I’m terrible at remembering anything if I don’t write it down, and creating a two-page spread in my journal really allows it to sink in as I spend time working on the pages highlighting words, emboldening phrases, adding color, and so much more. But I didn’t want to do it just for myself, and I made the decision that I wanted to share these. I devised a bit of a process and begun. Though many of these are podcast episodes and interviews, I wanted to broaden it a bit, so I looked at some of my favorite speeches and talks that I’ve watched over the years, and I dove in.

I’ve been sharing them on social media over the past month and a half, but I wanted to share a bit deeper here on the blog. I’m beginning at the beginning with the very first spread that I created about Neil Gaiman and his 2012 commencement speech.

This speech, dubbed “Make Good Art” was given at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and the YouTube videos have racked up more than a million views. In it, Gaiman shares the things that he wished he had known when he was starting out, as well as the one piece of advice that he failed to follow. It’s a great a speech, and if you have 20 minutes, I strongly encourage you to listen to it. Even if you’ve heard it before, I encourage you to listen to it.

One of the biggest take aways that I got from it, besides, “Make Good Art,” is the idea of looking at this journey as making your way to a mountain. If you want to be a writer, an artist, an entrepreneur, whatever, think of it as a mountain in the distance, and ask yourself a simple question. Am I moving TOWARDS or AWAY FROM the mountain? Is what you’re doing now, taking you towards the mountain, or is it moving you away from it?

It’s a sentiment that I’ve heard again and again from others, and photographer and creative entrepreneur Chase Jarvis sums it up with the idea that there is no map to your future. You just have a compass that points you in the right direction.

Are you heading in the right direction? Are you moving toward the mountain?

Check out Neil Gaiman’s speech HERE!

Bad News and Good News

This is the week that I should be getting ready to travel to western North Carolina to teach my Beyond Blank Pages class all next week at the John C. Campbell Folk School, but unfortunately, the class has been canceled due to low enrollment. I’m sure that COVID and time of year (winter in the mountains) had something to do with it, but I am pretty bummed about it. 

I loved teaching at the Folk School right before the pandemic shut everything down in March 2020, and I was looking forward to going back this time. Though I’m disappointed, I am trying to look at it from another point of view. I feel like the universe is allowing me to make space for something different — something bigger. This cancellation frees up a lot of time over the next few weeks, making space for me to contemplate, to create, and to bring something new and different into being.

I’m starting by finding a new way forward with the Beyond Blank Pages class. With the in-person class canceled, I am now free to make it into an online event and to do something that I have yet to do with any my virtual classes — take a truly deep dive online with a community of fellow creative folks. I’ve done a range of classes and workshops online, but nothing like what I am imaging for this class.

The Folk School class would have been a 6-day retreat where we delved deeply into taking a blank journal or sketchbook and turning it into a singular, visual work spending at least 6 hours a day painting, gluing, writing, making, and creating in, on, and between the pages. Many of us can’t take that kind of time away from our schedules to indulge in such an in depth experience, even if it were virtual. So, as I plan, plot, and scheme about how to bring this experience into the virtual realm, I have to approach it differently than anything else that I have done before, and I think that I have struck upon a way to do it.

I am envisioning a hybrid concept where there will be prerecorded content as well as live sessions. I don’t have all of the details worked out right now and things may change, but I’m thinking of an 8-week class where two prerecorded sessions are released each week with approximately an hour of instruction. Participants could work at their convenience for however long they feel during the week exploring the ideas shared and taking things in individual directions. There would be at least 4 live sessions scattered throughout the 8 weeks where we can come together as a creative community, share our creations, ask questions, and generally support each other.

The class would be all encompassing as it would truly explore nearly everything that I know about journaling and working in books. It’d be as if you took all of my classes and mashed them up into one big class, so we’ll explore how to take all of these ideas, materials, and techniques and bring them together into a single set of pages, and I hope that you can join me.

Though I don’t have all the little details worked out right now, I do know that the class will launch March 15th, 2022, and I’ll be opening it up for registration as early as this week if I can get everything ironed out.

But I wanted to let you all know what I was thinking about for the near future and to see if this new adventure is something you might be interested in.

Let me know what you think, and stay tuned for more info over the coming days.

Transitions

It is a time of year for transitions. Several days ago, the winter solstice marked the transition where the days began to grow longer meaning more daylight and less darkness. Also, we find ourselves at the ending of another year, and we’ll soon transition into a new one that holds much promise.

But the transitions that occur now are more subtle and more internal than the other transitions that happen throughout the rest of the year. The leaves have long since fallen, and the natural world seems somewhat lifeless, except for the scurry of small animals and birds trying to find the food that will sustain them through this time. It’s a time of dormancy and hibernation — a saving up and storing up of energy as to be ready when spring comes for new growth and an explosion of energy. It is a season to hide away and rest.

This time of year isn’t about making big bold changes, though so many folks make those big New Year’s resolutions. They never seem to last simply because the time isn’t right. It’s a time to make ready, to prepare, to sustain oneself until the conditions are right. And that is how I am feeling. I feel that big change and transition are coming, and it’s going to be something amazing and beautiful. It’ll be here before I know it, but I don’t know exactly what it will be. But it’s coming. I feel it mounting inside, and just as the days grow longer, the feeling grows stronger. For now, I am slowing down, gathering my resources, and sustaining myself through this time.

I prepare and reflect and make ready for a coming spring when new life, new growth, new energy can push forth. It may not look like it, but it’s a time of transition.

Hustle

I’m done hustling, and I’m done with the hustle. Now, I don’t mean the 1975 disco song by Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony. I’m done with hustling when it comes to my art, my creativity, and my making a living.

Now you may think that adopting this attitude is a bad move for someone who is out there trying to make it on his own — trying to do the freelance, self-employed thing. After all we hear the word “hustle” all the time from the business sector, and the side hustle has become an established thing for folks to make a bit of cash on the side. Just go to Amazon, and look up the word “hustle” and search just the books. You’ll find book after book, mostly business related, that extoll the virtues of hustling and the hustle as a means of making it in business and entrepreneurship. You’ll find an equal number that tell you how you can make it big with your side hustle, as well. So there seems to be a lot of folks who believe that you have to hustle in order to get what you want.

However, I’ve come to dread the word, and I’ve used it plenty of times to describe my efforts over the past five years since I left teaching and went out on my own as an artist, creator, and instructor. For me, the word “hustle” has always rung with a certain negativity and has always left a bad taste in my mouth. Now others talk about their hustle in glowing terms and see it as something to applaud. They see it as a key to success, but I’m done with it.

Hustling over the past five years has left me tired and worn out, and it hasn’t gotten me very far. It has been the times when I’ve slowed down and taken a step back that I’ve actually made my biggest strides. I think that’s because, at it’s best, hustling is about being energetic and doing something with speed, but at it’s worse, it’s about being aggressive, forceful, and dishonest.

Though there are those that glamorize hustle and hold it up as the be all and end all of making it in the world today, I just can’t help wonder how we got to the point where we think that doing something as quickly as possible is always better. See, every definition of hustle mentions energy, force, or speed, but they tellingly leave out words like efficiency and effectiveness. I can’t help thinking about my elementary school math classes where students rushed through a practice sheet or a test just so that they could be the first ones finished and be the first to yell out, “I’m done.” There was never a reward or a prize at being the first one finished, and rarely did these students receive top marks, myself included when I hustled through the math problems, because inevitably, mistakes were made and problems missed.

We have this notion that we have to do something as quickly as possible. I know much of it has to do with capitalism and making money. After all, “Time is money,” people always say, but speed does not necessarily mean good. Yes, the experienced potter can throw a cup more quickly than the novice, but that speed is earned through diligence, practice, and experience. It’s not simple a matter of doing it quickly for the sake of doing it quickly. Yet we still praise speed, quickness of action, and hustle, and as our world has sped up and gotten more competitive, we have only gotten more enamored with hustle.

Besides the speed issue, there’s the whole implication of hustle as something aggressive, pushy, dishonest, and at worst, illicit. Do I really want to be seen that way be people that I’m trying to serve — people that I care about? I do want them to buy my art or take a class with me, but I don’t want to push, cajole, or harass them. I want them to do those things because what I do resonates with them. I’m not looking to push them away with aggressive marketing ploys and an endless stream of spam. Besides, hustling saps me of my energy, and it seems so inefficient as I end up expending far too much energy for far too small of a return.

So. I am done with hustling. It doesn’t mean that I’m not working hard or not working at all. I’m not sitting back and just letting things be what they’re bound to be. I’m simply devoting the time and the energy that I would to hustling into making better work and deeper work. I want to connect with folks on a deeper level and create a sense of community, not hustle for their attention. I want to serve these people, not market to them — not hustle them out of money.

It’s about connection and community and not about seeking attention, and so, I am done with hustling.

Why Do We Create?

Why do we create?

That’s a question that popped up at the end of my morning meditation, and I just had to sit down and ponder the power of that simple questions..

I think we create for many reasons. We create for shear joy, to express a feeling or an idea, to practice a skill or learn a technique, to be like people we admire. There are so many reasons why we create, but I think the main reason that we create is simply that it’s in our programming. As human beings we are programmed to create, and when I say create, I don’t just mean crating art, though I am a visual artist, I mean building, cooking, writing, designing, singing, dancing, making, and so much more. When we create we are solving a problem. We’re making food for to feed our bodies. We’re writing music to feed our souls. We’re expressing a personal truth that we want to get from our heads to someone else’s. We’re building a business to serve a specific need.

We are constantly presented with problems, and we use our creativity to solve them. But nowadays, so many of our problems are simply solved by buying something online or in a store or by paying someone else to solve them for us, and we don’t have to use our creativity and problem solving skills like we once did. Long before Amazon and Target and supermarkets and fast food chains, we had to solve our problems by making and creating things ourselves. We built our homes, sewed our clothes, baked our bread, planted our food. We were constantly making and creating because it was just part of our day-to-day life as a means of survival.

But over time we lost that daily making and creating, and now we are mostly consuming. We buy — we watch — we listen. We consume and consume. But there is still this innate need inside to create. I think it explains the plethora of DIY shows, channels, and videos. I think it explains the popularity of those reality competition shows where folks bake, or cook, or blow glass. We want to create, but we’re still stuck in consume mode, and it’s easier to watch others create than it is for us to do something ourselves. But we still dream of being creators.

It’s a natural part of who we are. We have somehow become disconnected to it. We have shut ourselves off from it, and we find excuse after excuse to not even try. We have convinced ourselves that it’s easier to stay disconnected from a crucial part of ourselves than it is to risk becoming fully who we are and live up to our greatest potential. We continue to feel incomplete. We feel like something is missing — that there’s a deep part of us buried and calling to us, but we don’t want to take the risk.

Why? Why won’t we take the steps to connect with that part of ourselves?

Fear. We are afraid that we’ll suck at it. We’re afraid that others will laugh at us and make fun of us. We fear that we won’t be as good as someone else — that we’ll never measure up. We fear that we’ll be discovered and found out as frauds and creative charlatans. We fear that what we want to say is worthless. We fear that we will fail. We fear so much, and so we stay in our comfortable little bubbles and consume and consume and dream and dream. All the while, we feel disconnected and incomplete.

It takes courage and vulnerability to create. What would it look like — what would it feel like — if the world supported us in this fragile state? What if we felt the fear and did it anyway?

We risk connecting with ourselves and showing up as fully ourselves when we dare to create, and we may just find that others will support and encourage us and that we may just inspire others. It’s a risk we should be willing to take.

So make, create, build, sing, dance, draw, paint, write, learn, connect, and become. It’s part of who you are!

Socially Awkward

I am socially awkward.

I have always been that way, and my mom tells a story of how I stood on the steps as a little kid watching my brother and sister and the neighbor kids playing below. I was probably three or four years old, and I stood at the top of the tall steps smiling and giggling at their antics, and when my mom came over to me and told me that I could go down and play with the others and join in the fun, I said no that I was fine where I was. So, I stayed in my spot as observer watching the others.

I remember the middle school and high school dances, and there was nothing more nerve racking and perilous for me. I was fine with a small group of my buddies, but interacting with so many other kids who sat or stood around in small groups and cliques chatting about this and that was truly dreadful. But nothing was worse than the sight of whatever girl I was crushing on at that moment. It was enough to tie my tongue and have my heart leap into my throat, and of course she was always with two or three of her friends, making it impossible to catch her by herself. Too often the dances ended with me simply staring longingly and never getting up the courage to ask her to dance.

Even to this day, I’m not comfortable at parties. I hate small talk, and find it tedious and boring, and too often I find myself standing alone, drink in hand wondering why everyone else seems to have a natural gift for fitting in and talking about simple things. I think that I’ve gotten better at it, but it’s so taxing.

Even in today’s age of social media where you’re always just a few keystrokes away from a witty remark or a thought-provoking anecdote, I find myself fumbling for words and more than often than not, avoiding the conversation all together. Many others can don a new persona, a new way of being in these virtual places and really thrive. They feel much more at ease with a screen between themselves and others as they chat it up.

But social media is draining to me, and I find it difficult to navigate and still very awkward. Social media is like a party to me. I see folks talking, but find it hard to interject myself into the conversation. Too often I stand and listen from a virtual distance, wondering why everyone else seems so much more at ease. 

It’s not natural to me, and scrolling through my feed feels like strolling around at a party — different conversations in different cliques of people. I circle again and again eavesdropping on the conversations hoping to hear a sentence or a phrase that not only catches my attention, but that can pull me into the conversation. Sometimes I hear something and I play interloper as I pony up my two cents and quickly retreat back into a darkened corner of cyberspace, hoping and waiting for someone to engage me. But it seems so strange and so challenging.

Social media is a strange and mysterious place for someone who is socially awkward.

Amplify: James DeRosso

Today I am featuring Portland, Oregon ceramic artist James DeRosso as the latest in my Amplify Series. I don’t know James personally, but I am a big fan of his work.

About five years ago I was inspired by one of the fourth graders that I was teaching at the time who was drawing monsters, and I thought, “Hey, that looks like fun,” and before long I began drawing my own monsters. Since that time, monsters have become a vein of my work, so I definitely have an affinity to artists that create monsters. It was at this time that a friend just casually said that I should check out monster8all.com, and that’s when I first discovered James’ amazing work.

James’ love of ceramics began in junior high, and though he received his college degree in graphic design, he spent a lot of time during those college years in electives in the ceramic studio. After college he began working in advertising, but continued to pursue ceramics on the side. Eventually a commission for 200 custom ceramic vases forced him to quit his advertising job and focus on the commission full time. He never went back to advertising, and has been creating unique ceramic pieces ever since.

The monsters grew out of the small guardian creatures James would make to watch over the firing of the kiln while in college, but these small gargoyle-like figures kept disappearing from the top of the kiln. James then decided that perhaps there was something to these little characters and started to focus his energy into creating more realized versions.

James creates both stand alone sculptural pieces and functional pieces. His monsters aren’t scary or gory. They seem more grumpy or annoyed, but they have a fun and comical air to them with their large eyes, visible teeth, and expressive faces. This was something that really drew me in and inspired my monsters. With all of James’ monsters, he draws attention to the eyes and often glazes them with a bright red, a vivid blue, or an opaque white to make them contrast the body and really stand out.

Whether sculptural or functional, his pieces seem to fall into a couple of categories. He has purely ceramic pieces that come from the kiln finished, and he has mixed media pieces where he combines the fired monsters with rusty bits of metal, wheels, gears, and gauges giving them a slightly steampunk vibe. As for his functional pieces, James creates monster pots, lidded canisters, mugs, salt and pepper shakers, and much more.

Along with his ceramic monsters, James has also brought his aesthetic to two-dimensional work and has explored his monsters through illustration and painting.

Like many artists, James shares his work through galleries, festivals, and exhibitions, but he also brings the joy of monster making to kids and adults alike through the workshops and classes he teaches.

I hope that you enjoy James’ fun and unique monsters as much as I do, and please make certain to check out James online to see more of his amazing work.

Website: http://www.monster8all.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Monster8all/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monster8james/

Amplify: Jen McCleary

So far the artists that I have featured as part of my Amplify project have been good friends of mine, or at the very least Facebook friends. But I gain inspiration from many artists that I don’t know and never met. Today, I am expanding the project to include someone whom I have followed for quite some time online — someone whose work I have admired, but someone whom I’ve never met.

Today’s Amplify artist is Philadelphia-based artist Jen McCleary. Jen is a versatile artist and creates mixed media work, digital collages, jewelry, and wheel thrown pottery. I first came across Jen’s art on Instagram, most likely from looking at a variety of mixed media art and journal art. It was her art journals that first drew me in, and the time-lapse videos of her working in her journals inspired me to create my own time-lapse, Journal Friday videos. I love seeing her process. She works in a much different way in her journals than I do in mine, and it’s always interesting to see a fresh take on the process.

Art has always been an important part of Jen’s life, and by high school she knew she wanted to be an artist. She studied painting and printmaking at the Tyler School of Art of Temple University, and it was during this time that she discovered her love of mixed media and book art. After college, she ended up working in the field of academic publishing, but continued to pursue her art. After going back to school, she became a graphic designer for a local university, and eventually was able to go freelance, giving her more flexibility with her creating.

No matter the medium, Jen approaches her work in a very similar way. She works intuitively as she pieces together disparate images, patterns, and materials from her collection of ephemera and odds and ends, fitting it all together in a cohesive work. She invites play and discovery into her process, and allows the work to evolve as she works. The juxtaposition of images, shapes, and patterns creates work that is visceral and symbolic.

Of all of Jen’s work, I am most drawn to her mixed media pieces where she physically pulls together an array of fragments and pieces to create something that suggests narrative and story, but the ambiguous nature leaves that story or narrative up to the viewer to interpret and form.

Along with her more traditional, hands-on work, Jen creates digital collages with that same feel. Though she originally disliked digital art, the possibilities of Photoshop won her over and led her to change her mind.

Repurposing and reusing of objects, images, and materials is an important part of Jen’s process and is probably most evident in her jewelry work and her ceramic work. With her jewelry, she combines found and vintage objects with imagery and mixed media to create one of a kind wearable art. And in her ceramic work, she doesn’t simple create functional wheel pieces. She creates the pieces and then alters them through decoupage and kintsugi, the traditional Japanese art of repairing broken pots with gold and lacquer to create something different and unexpected.

Though Jen doesn’t deliberately set out to create a certain piece with a certain meaning, there are themes that run through her work. In her artist statement, Jen describes some of the dualities that she explores in her work and specifically mentions light/dark, man-made/natural, and complexity/simplicity. I would also say that her work explores deconstruction/reconstruction, universal/personal, and cosmic/earthly, as well as others.

I hope that you enjoy Jen’s work as much as I do, and of course, you can find out more about her and see much more of her work online.

Website: https://www.jenmccleary.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JenMcClearyArt/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenmcclearyart/