We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jackie Robbins a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Jackie, thanks for joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I knew unquestionably that I would be and become an Artist from childhood. I announced this to my family at about or around the age of ten years old. I remember that this was the year that I was gifted my first camera and I was given oil paints and canvas to create with by my parents. I started Art instruction at the Chouinard Art Institute and quickly moved to the 1st year college life drawing course at eleven, with my parents permission, of course. Because my family of five was not a part of ‘a well heeled community’ it is rather remarkable that my parents found the funds to give me this early training, recognizing my innate talents.

To answer this question succinctly I have only felt unhappy in my life when, for whatever reason, I was not being creative or making something. I tried my one and only job in Video/ Tech industry not expressing my creative ability in my early twenties, lasted about one year, quit and never looked back. Since that time I have been a small business entrepreneur creating my own venue for my work.

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?

My entrepreneurial life began with my relationship to Fred Segal, one of the West Coast’s best-known designers and retailers. I had worked in his famous boutique on Melrose Ave. in West Hollywood as a high school student. I folded jeans and learned to serve customers under his tutelage. About 5 years later I ran into him while he was building the Malibu Country Mart. I had just previously moved into the area and been working in a horseman’s saddle shop, doing repair work and beginning to make my own clothing designs in leather, suede and shearling. Fred Segal remembered me from working at Melrose and agreed to look at my work. I had purchased my own leather sewing machine and set it up in the one room guest house I was renting in Malibu, so I brought him everything I had…one pair of suede jeans and a patchwork leather saddlebag purse. He was  impressed with my craftsmanship and offered me a small affordable space in his shopping center. Fred mentored me on capturing an elite clientele, and I eagerly hung onto to every word he shared with me. I became the longest standing tenant at the Mart in it’s history, 30 years. I built glamorous small business making custom couture clothing for the ‘rich and famous’.

I credit the longevity of my boutique business to what Fred Segal called, my uncanny ability to provide my clients with satisfaction. I always listened and preformed to their specific needs, not only providing creativity in design but also the highest quality workmanship I could possibly provide, I called it ‘110%’. My brand ‘Leather Waves’ became very popular, supported me well and I eventually birthed other big players in my business model that I created from scratch.

During my entire career with Leather Waves I used my photography skills to document my fashions with models, created marketing campaigns and produced runway shows. At my high point I was making all of my product, doing photo sessions regularly and seriously promoting my brand. A one-woman show in every way. I never stopped making fine art either. Painting and making mixed-media work, showing it as a decor element in my Boutique or occasionally in a show, I placed and sold my art here and there. This has given me great pleasure as Art has always been my first love, and something that I am pursuing much more seriously now later in my life.

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

The biggest rewards of my career as an artist is the testimony I continually receive from individuals who supported me with their purchases. Hearing their praise from them personally about an item I made years ago and how that item has been passed forward to next generations or how some of their most vivid memories include what they were wearing and how they felt about themselves because of it. The testimony that is given freely to me about the unique experience of visiting my atelier, watching and experiencing the work being done there and the feelings of excitement and inspiration that were received. And the recognition of my dedication, the tenacity involved in my longevity and the sheer joy involved in the creative process people experienced working with me. Other personal rewards are ones that involve people who have hung and looked at my artworks for decades on the walls of their homes, those shared feelings are tucked randomly into my heart, and will always live there.

Seeing  people whom I have mentored make my spirit swell unproportionately to the relatively small stature person that I am. Although I have been copied in my branding without my permission, if you are ever trying to locate me, I am only in Malibu and have always been in Malibu! Probably most important of all is the satisfaction I feel every day I am alive that I have been true to my dream and used my life force to be an artist and share my creations with others.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Artists need to eat, be sheltered and basically enjoy the pursuit of happiness, however that presents itself in their lives. If they are steadfast in their creative process then these principals of life must be provided for. How to do that? This is a question that has plagued artists all through time and history. That is why we all must find ways to respond to art and support the beauty it creates in our world. It can simply start with interest each and every time one recognizes talent, creativity and virtuosity within another person.

Buy someone’s book, read it and share it with others. Go to a play, an opera, a concert or an exhibition. Be someone who values culture. Travel look and see in unexpected places, meet a street artist, listen to a musician, buy something or donate so that the experience creates beautiful memories for you. Give a gift, a subscription, a most desired object that your loved one can not take their eyes or mind off of. Visit your favorite artists hang-outs get into the conversation, one might be surprised what opportunities arise for lovers of the arts. Have a salon, invite people to meet your favorite creative people, have them bring a piece of their work to show or read or play. Humans have been painting on walls and telling stories since they began living on this planet, art is a signature of life itself.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.leatherwaves.com and www.jackierobbinsstudio.com
• Instagram: @leather.waves.malibu.ca and @jackie.robbins.studio.malibu
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/leatherwaves/ and https://www.facebook.com/jackie.robbins.studio.malibu/
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-robbins-designer-at-leather-waves-malibu-california

Image Credits
Pictures of Jackie Robbins taken by Jeff Herrera