We were lucky to catch up with Jack Bride recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jack thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?

My art business has scaled both up and down, and up again, over twenty years. I had to learn the business end of things after learning how to paint, first. I went to school for fine art, and never took any formal business classes. I learned as I went, which was a rough ride. However, if I’d played things safe and went for a regular job, I can only imagine how much, and how often, I’d long to be an artist.

I’ve always kept a handful of side-jobs to buttress my fluctuating art career, every job has helped me learn new skills and feel a bit more complete as a person. Having labour with a clear and tangible result helps, as the results of an art practice aren’t always so clear right away, and can take years to happen. Plus, my art practice is mostly solitary, so working in the world with others keeps me from becoming (too much of) a weirdo.

No matter what volume of side-work I have at any given time, and how well or how poorly my art business is doing, the fact that the art is always there is like having a little flame deep inside that can never go out.

One exciting part-time job I have enjoyed for years is helping a painting company that hosts team-building events. We run accounting and sales teams through the process of making a painting, from start to finish. That’s probably the strongest experience to reflect upon, in regard to having a regular job. In the corporate work environment, people go through years of trying to keep themselves in check, like never saying the wrong thing. I have a great time hanging out with them (all the innuendo they use to get through the day has its perks), but it does make me happy to have chosen a life where I can be closer to the reality of my fallibility, even if I live at an arhythmic pace.

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 was always interested in art as a kid. It began with comic books, television cartoons, and the books I would read/ have read to me. As I became a teenager, illustration, animation, and making videos were big interests, and as I approached adulthood I began exploring fine art. The four year process of a fine arts program at the Alberta College of Art and Design was one of learning how to think critically of my own creative process, experiment, and find a sensational core in all that I make.

Returning to the world after art school was a journey of getting back to the basics of art, and growing from there. Now, I have followed my art practice in the world for twenty years, and through trial and error built a structure of painting, drawing, print media and video. As I explored different disciplines, each came with it’s own scene and particular way of life. I’ve learned that I love making comics until the panels feel too confining, I love painting until I need a break from the fumes, and I love creating animation, although that process tends to be diametrically opposed to sunlight and fresh air! I’ve also explored the performative arts, which have settled in me as a counter to my creative strengths, it’s my discomfort zone and holds a great opportunity for renewal, when needed.

My product is artwork which functions as an object of focus in a client’s home or office, aiding in inspiration, contemplation, even to daydream. All of the most wonderful inventions we use in our everyday lives come from those who allow time for their minds to wander; my artwork provides a vessel for such wandering.

I provide an externality to the world of dream. Everyone has inside his or her self a deep well of imagination, and each person has a different degree of ability to access and articulate this well. I know how to break ideas down to their essence, and how to veil them through the process of creation. Sometimes it works the opposite direction, where the process of creation is a distillation to get to the core idea.

Often I paint what I envision and, the closer I get to hitting the bullseye of an idea, the more directly it communicates to the audience. I’ve developed a sixth sense for when an artwork does this, and it’s usually a painting that will sell immediately. Other times, I will go fully into an artwork which builds an idiosyncratic world, make sure it works optically, and put it out into the world to see if it makes sense to anyone else. Sometimes that work will connect with people in ways that come almost as a surprise.

With commissioned work, what sets me apart from others is the way I ask questions to get a full understanding of what resides in a client’s imagination. I know firsthand how difficult it is to articulate an idea, so I walk them through my own creative process, one question at a time. Then, when ready, I begin the work with enthusiasm, keeping a client’s internal world close to my artistic choices.

I have confidence in my own ideas. It takes practice to shake off the unnecessary shyness, or guilt, or shame, we can accumulate through the fear of not fitting in or seeming crazy. I’ve also cultivated a great technical ability, to translate both strange ideas and normal scenes into dazzling objects of beauty.

I want potential clients to know that my work has a serious amount of practice behind it, from setting up the proper materials needed down to crafting the best composition for each specific idea. I love the risk behind making art, the willingness to fail in order to take a shot at greatness is inherent every time I make something. I have worked for five days on a large painting, and when it wasn’t working I began again, knowing the second try would be exponentially better than the first. It came through faster, buzzing with vital energy. I’ve had work destroyed in an epic flood, and I created new art about the flood, as my old work was being destroyed. Those are a few examples of my dedication.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Alchemy: An Introduction to the Symbolism and Psychology
by Marie Louis Von Franz, Inner City Books.

This book is a transcription of a few lectures by Von Franz, breaking down the history of alchemy and what psychological instruction we can receive from it, in the modern era. It really drove home for me the understanding that every process has specific stages, which happen from start to finish, and can also cycle through more than once: confusion/ illusion, enlightenment/ clarity, and finally passion/ vital force. It’s a great thing to know which stage you are in your process. There is a time to be lost in the storm to try and sift through what works and what doesn’t, a time to rise above the storm, looking down upon it with an “aha” sense of clarity, and a time to decend from the heights of clarity back into the world to apply new knowledge, as a reintroduction; a circulation.

Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson
by Camille Paglia, Vintage Canada Books

A massive undertaking of a book! Even the introduction alone is hugely informative. Paglia went through seven different publishers before one chose to champion this text. It helped me understand that every stage of civilization has its own ideology informing creativity, and within each stage there are artists who flesh out the ideology, and artists who create in opposition to their time. It’s an eye opener to many binaries in the human psyche, Paglia reveals that every act of creation has a place on the scale between reaching for the severe light of the heavens and a writhing in the warm chaos of nature.

Do you have multiple revenue streams – if so, can you talk to us about those streams and how your developed them?

I have a number of channels within my art practice.

Painting portraits of people and of peoples’ pets is a common way to make money and a very direct route to satisfied clientele. I was employed as a dog walker for a while, and loved painting portraits of each dog in my pack. I’ve also developed a situational portrait practice, where clients sit across from me and I paint them with their aura.

Landscape painting is another side to my work that I consider easily digestible, where clients will choose from a series of landscape paintings the image that works best for their life and home. It is probably my most traditional way of working, using oil and canvas. Living in Canada, there is such a richness in the land that I feel compelled to weigh in on our long history of landscape painting.

I also create large watercolour paintings, which function as nonlinear narratives of fictional characters I have created, along with astrological themes. Each one takes about a month. I’ve been building this series for two years. They are my most expensive work, and I often feel like each work leads me, as I draft it. Very involved in an obsessive way, they bring together many different methods of my history as an artist. Personally, spiritually, and technically my favourite work.

Comic books! My print media has its own audience, in a way. I have followers online who only purchase my work whenever it’s a comic book or print of some kind. The format of storytelling is part of my foundation as an artist, and the freedom of expression found in cartooning is a great, compact method to distribute ideas. I also produce cards, like a tarot deck, which attracts the same audience.

And finally, animation. This doesn’t directly create revenue, however it provides a different view of my developed worlds, with sound, motion, and voice. Once someone is into my work, I will usually send a link to my animated work as a supplement.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: jack_bride_
• Facebook: Jack Bride
• Twitter: jack_bride_
• Youtube: Bride333
• Other: *** personal photo uploaded to the next page is by Alice XueInterview for my Large Watercolours:

  https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/jack-bride-weaving-astrology-full-moons-and-comics-into-his-unique-artistic-vision/ar-AA1x7GFU?disableErrorRedirect=true&infiniteContentCount=0

  Interview for my Landscape Oil Paintings:

  https://nyweekly.com/arts/jack-bride-recapturing-canadian-landscapes-on-canvas/

Image Credits

Artist Portrait with red background by Alice Xue

Photo of me painting with the mountain backdrop by Chrissy Nickerson

All other documentation of art provided by the artist