We recently connected with Deonna Bettis and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Deonna thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I experience so much joy in almost every facet of my creative process – but that emotion runs deeper, and it is quieter on the surface than happiness. A good amount of my joy comes from knowing that creative work is meaningful, AND my delight in always having something I can learn more about.

No, I don’t really wonder or compare being an artist with working for someone else. for a few reasons. Why?

Well, first, I’ve had many positions as an employee – and there were pros and cons to each one. My reasons for establishing a studio practice and making my art available to collectors was from a place of vulnerability and desire. Very different motivations from what prompted my other employment.

Second, I don’t spend a lot of time wondering or comparing because I have actually chosen to work part time as an employee for health insurance and retirement options that I wouldn’t have with studio income alone right now. It’s been a slow build for me (and so many others) coming back from pandemic losses.

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?

I have always been curious and creative – I think we all begin life that way, but that creativity took a variety of forms in my growing up years. I wrote stories, composed songs on the piano, assembled magazine collages, designed and painted murals on bedroom walls….all rather badly I might add. I first began painting consistently while in graduate school studying urban policy. It started as a means of synthesizing the information I was acquiring. There were large amounts of quantitative data, and analysis of the data, and after awhile, the humanity began to feel lost in the forrest of academia. Painting gave me a way to connect and attempt to bear witness to the beauty, goodness, and truth that I experienced in the lives of actual people and places… it was an alternative way to get my highly analytical mind to loosen up. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. Painting opened up a whole new way of seeing for me. Observing how paint moved across a surface, the visceral movements my body made canvas, noticing color and light everywhere. It was like an awakening.

In terms of the work I create – mostly large, layered acrylic paintings that are deeply influenced by nature, and rich with narrative.

I provide a way for curious individuals to participate in the creation of culture rather than simply operating as a consumer. This happens through working with collectors to find an original fine art painting for their living spaces that matches the culture they seek to create – not simply matching an aesthetic. I have questions that I encourage my clients to answer before making an investment in my own or any other works of art. I feel it really can help distill the process from one that is intimidating, to one that brings joy and long term meaning into their lives.

I look to connect with those individuals or businesses that are seeking a statement piece, or thematic collection of work that deeply reflects who they are. My whole painting practice began from a desire to express holistic narratives, to see the world, and people in it as they are – not as numbers or subjects. My work layers representational and expressionist elements in unique ways that are timeless.

I am grateful to be creating from a place of delight and curiosity, at a pace that challenges and frees me to respond in the best way possible for the work while honoring the galleries, collectors, others who have invested in my vision over the course of almost two decades.

If you, or a business you know of is looking to collaborate on a statement painting, or thematic collection of paintings for a unique space – and you want to be integral in the creation of culture through investment in original art, I would love the opportunity to hear your vision.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I find the endless possibilities for learning to be one of the most rewarding aspects of being an artist. I do the best I can with the knowledge I have in a given moment- and moments, or months later there can be a shift, not always visibly discernible, but something has been learned and the work continues to deepen and mature. I won’t EVER be able to get to the end of it – and I LOVE that!

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My creative practice has always been deeply and intrinsically connected with my own becoming – reflections of observed reality and deep Truth as I am learning to see. I think most artists would agree, but essentially we assemble evolving portraits – of self, or relationships – that show the world that each season has its purpose. Each stage its beauty. There is meaning – either to rage against, return to, or revel in.

My work is one of integration. Willingly sifting through layers of being, wrestling with chaos that tries to assert itself as triumphant. Exploring and bringing together what is seen and unseen in a way that points to wholeness.

Contact Info:

• Website: WWW.DEONNAJANONE.COM
• Instagram: @DEONNAJANONE