Today we’re excited to be connecting with Nila Jane Autry again. We’re excited to feature one of their products in our gift guide – learn more below and we encourage you to use your gift budget to support small businesses & creatives whenever possible.

Nila Jane, thanks for joining us again. We’re so excited to have a product focused conversation today. Can you bring our readers up to speed on the product side?
I’m an oil painter. Flowers are my specialty. I grow them, or find them and paint them. It’s the realism, including the fiddle faddle surrounding them that make my paintings unique. Most are small, making the original painting affordable, and honestly, anyone can find wall space for a spot of intense color! Can you imagine receiving an original oil painting as a gift? Powerful!!!

Do you remember the moment you realized the world needed this product?
I was riding a bus with my art students we were heading to the Springville Art Museum to see the Statewide High School Art Show. A few of my students had artwork in the show, which was a very big deal. The ride was long and I had some quiet time so I pulled out my sketchbook. The previous night I had gone shopping with the idea of finding sunflower wall paper trim for my kitchen. Yes. It was the 90’s. I was amazed and sorely disappointed that the artwork depicting sunflowers was so poorly done. As I rode the bus I began listing all the ways I could create sunflower art. It exploded! And my journey began. I painted, photographed, stitched, colored, transferred, planted, sculpted, water colored, and all about sunflowers. 20 years later, and wondered if I’d ever finish my sunflower series. I could now fill an art gallery with all kinds of sunflower art in several mediums including stained glass. It was time. I started noticing other lovely ladies…and as I learned more about marketing I narrowed my mediums to only oils. Painting en Plein air (outside on location), became a passion. So flowers in their natural habitat, any kind of flower….have called to me and maybe I’ll paint them till I leave this Earth.

If you had to boil your product or brand down to one core message – what would that message be?
God lives!

What are you most thankful for?
I’m so grateful God gave me the passion and power to paint flowers, and a way to share them with others. There’s a place in my heart of profound reverence for the beauties of the Earth and the awe…I must share.

Image Credits
Nila Jane Autry