We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jayanne Aron. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jayanne below.

Alright, Jayanne thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I would like to lie and say that each of my drawings is packed full of artistically rendered pieces of my soul, but that’s definitely not true. While well over half of my pieces do contain very personal representations of my identity and painful memories, there is also a percentage of my drawings that don’t. Some of the things I make are just because I enjoy making art, and in those instances I usually choose to draw things that I like or that I find visually appealing. Those drawings are just as important to my portfolio because they exhibit a different side of me. My art isn’t completely trauma-based and disgusting to contemplate, sometimes it’s very playful and lighthearted. Being able to represent both parts of myself in a similar aesthetic style is a very meaningful part of what I create. However, there is one piece that stands out to me as my most meaningful, and it is one of my oldest and best-selling pieces. It’s an image of a disemboweled female body, suspended with tight bondage on a shadowy background. I drew it when I was in high school, during one of the toughest periods of my life. I was experiencing severe sexual abuse, and pushing my experiences and emotions onto the paper was the easiest was for me to cope with my reality at the time. I have been able to make tremendous steps forward since then, and now I can look back on that drawing and appreciate the entirety of what it means to me.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am a traditional visual artist, I use mainly black ink to draw semi-surrealist images. A lot of my drawings end up formatted as a sort of collage, and I often take my own reference pictures. I have been drawing since before I could walk, and since kindergarten I have boasted that I would have a career as an artist. It was the most natural thing to me, so I don’t think anyone who knows me is surprised that I have continued doing it for so long. The other aspect of my work is the music venue operation. I co-own a live music venue called The Greene House, in LaGrange, Wisconsin. This has been one of the best things in my career so far because it has given me the platform to share my art with musicians and other artists. I host at least three music festivals annually, and at each one there are local art and crafts vendors. Being able to bring those two parts of my life together has been a huge success for me, and I especially love that I can provide a space for other artists to share their work.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

In order to support the current artists of today (mainly musicians, visual artists, and writers) everyone needs to actively avoid and defund AI. Artificial Intelligence has already made such a ridiculously large negative impact on the arts as a whole, and we cannot stand idly by and watch it continue to do so. There needs to be an active effort from creatives and non-creators alike to protect the hardworking artists who are losing business to the AI industry.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding thing about being an artist is being able to share art with people. Drawing portrait for a stranger in the line at a coffee place, making birthday cards for the people I love, designing flyers or promotional materials for events that I’m passionate about – it all stems from my desire to share art. The more art that can be integrated into daily life, the better. And not just highly processed advertisements with weak design elements, real art made by real people. That’s the type of art I want to share so vehemently. Draw a bad caricature of your friend to make them laugh, spend time scribbling in crayon with a child. That type of art fosters love and compassion, which I’m sure almost everyone agrees that we need more of.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://greenehouselive.com
• Instagram: @hardrock_sdnation
• Facebook: Jayanne Aron