We were lucky to catch up with Ajean Ryan recently and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Ajean thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
Being an artist is not a career path that is encouraged by most practical and concerned parents. Being a daughter of Korean-American immigrants, I don’t recall ever being encouraged to pursue my art at an early age. Drawing was something that came to me very easily and perhaps because of its effortlessness during my formative years, I never gave it much credence or credit. As I made my way through school where STEM classes were emphasized, my art felt like a dirty secret that I had to hide. These surreptitious “acts of making” started to develop more meaning and be more important than much of the classwork that I focused on especially during my years in high school. It was only in college, lost and confused about what I thought I was expected to do with my life and what I really wanted to do with my life, did I find my way to my first drawing class. From there, the rest was history.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
After receiving my MFA and while teaching part-time, I started a permanent position as a drawing professor. Academia can be a very challenging arena in which to find a creative job and also one that is historically very Eurocentric and Western in perspective. It is literally called the “Ivory Tower” for a reason. My role as an art professor at a land grant institution is to engage and expose students and faculty to a diversity of thought and cultural experiences. I came into the classroom, wanting to teach art and a holistic approach to creating visual works but I am now, in many ways, as empowered by exploring and sharing issues of diversity and inclusion within the fine arts as well.
Most of my work is exhibited in museums, galleries and non-profit spaces. Most of my sales have occurred through my website and through personal and professional contacts. I apply to grants and residencies when I am able and encourage all young artists to find the time, space and freedom to allow yourself these generous opportunities.
My work has always been about feminine identity and the Western landscape. Having grown up in Utah and now living in Colorado, the myth of the American West is something incredibly rich and meaningful to me. As an Asian-American woman who has grown up riding my bike amongst tumbleweeds and vast landscapes- the Western backdrop and my role as an immigrant will always create the work that I make. Lately, I have been making vermillion ink drawings. Vermillion ink is from both the Far East and of Western European ancestry. The ink represents two worlds and in my drawings of landscapes, both real and imagined, I try to capture the flora and fauna that surrounds us in the high dessert.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
Natural talent is fleeting unless you nourish it. Some of the hardest working young artists I have had the privilege to teach and know, were never the most gifted in the classroom; they worked the hardest, asked the most questions and never gave up. If all you have is natural ability and no work ethic, the work will die of hunger.
Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?
I think all people are creative- in one form or another- maybe not in any given prescribed way but creativity comes out in every imaginable and unimaginable way possible. Creativity could be the way you fold your napkins, or the way you take care of your car, or even something as mundane as writing a shopping list. Being an artist to me means doing something with intention and with while keeping in mind the beauttiful and imperfect.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.ajeanryan.com
- Instagram: @ajeanlryan
Image Credits
Wes Maygar