We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jade Griffin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jade, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
Well, I have always been drawing since I was a kid but it wasn’t until elementary school that I knew that I wanted to be an artist when I grew up. It was years later around 2020 that I decided that I wanted to take art seriously so I could eventually become a full-time artist. I was around 20 years old back when I started painting and putting my art out there and I haven’t looked back since. Now it’s been almost 4 years later and since then I have managed to turn what I love into a career and make an income from it. I am at a point in my career where I am well on my way to making my dreams of becoming a full-time artist a reality.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Well to start off, I’m Jade Griffin and I am a Visual Artist who also loves to make clothes! I am based in South Florida and have started taking my art professionally around 2020 by creating paintings and putting myself out there on social media, attending creative events, and being a part of group exhibitions, and art markets all over South Florida. I have been a professional artist for almost 4 years and in my practice, I love taking the things that I see and experience and creating a whole new reality around the way that I see life through my work. I am inspired by a lot of pop culture references, music, characters, and celebrities and take those figures/images to a create new but familiar reality. I like to take inspiration from images that I see that resonate with me and just create what I see from it while also incorporating the way that I see life. I offer painting commissions, and bookings for live painting gigs, and open for collaborations for group solo exhibitions. Pretty soon I will also be creating streetwear-inspired clothing centered around my art and designs. I have a lot of plans for my career, but so far I feel like the main thing that I am proud of within myself and my career is my genuine love and ambition to succeed in my craft. I am from a small town in South Florida where you don’t hear about many people making it unless you play sports or do music. not as a painter and designer. and I feel like bridging that gap and showing that it can be done is what drives me, Right next to my goal to be the best artist that I can be within my craft. Shortly, I would love to have and fund my warehouse studio where I continue to expand and expedite into a deeper context within my craft. To not only create large-scale paintings, but also explore sculpture work, dive deeper into designing and manufacturing clothes, and even partake in brand collaborations and more! I want to continue to put out ground-breaking work for group and solo exhibitions all over Florida, the U.S., and even out of the country. I know that I will eventually create my fashion show at some point in my career to explore a different way of storytelling through art and fashion.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
I have so many untold stories that helped shape who I am, but there is one in particular that came to mind and it was art-related that I will never forget. It happened sometime in 2020 when I was just getting my career off the ground. Whenever I had the free time from my day job I would use my time to travel to different galleries around town alone to study the works of the artist and to mingle within the art scene. At this time I wouldn’t outwardly tell any of the patrons or the workers at these galleries that I was an emerging artist but somehow they would always find out when they would catch me in deep conversation about the artworks on display and then eventually would just end up asking me anyway. At this time I would only reveal to them that I was a local artist when they asked me, other then that I wouldn’t tell them. There were several galleries around Naples and Fort Myers (my hometown) that I would travel to but there were 2 particular galleries in Naples that stood out when I had conversations with them. The first gallery I visited showed a lot of colorful abstract work from a particular artist that they showed. I greeted the curator who was on staff and she asked me a bit about myself and what I thought about the work on display. I gave her my honest thoughts about the artwork then she asked me how old I was and asked me if I was an artist. That’s when I revealed to her I was an emerging artist just traveling around admiring and studying the works of other artists around town. Then she gave me some unsolicited advice on how to get acquainted within the art scene in Naples and eventually ended the conversation with “No one is going to just pick up a random artist off of the street” After that I just cut the conversation short and thanked her for her time and “advice” and left. Although I was an emerging artist at that time, I was already in the process of making a name for myself before I met this curator in this gallery so I didn’t pay her any mind because I knew that one day she would eat those words. Then the next gallery I went to was the last one I visited before I had to get back home. This gallery was directly owned by the artist and was ran by his wife. Out of all the galleries I have visited, I have enjoyed his work the most plus he owned his own gallery combined studio which deeply inspired me even more. I eventually got a chance to speak with him and ask him questions about his gallery and work. Then towards the end of our conversation, I showed him my work and he loved it! I expressed to him that I was an emerging artist who eventually wanted to show my paintings in a gallery soon I shared with him my individual plans for my career then and he asked me on the spot if I wanted to do a joint show with him in his gallery. I said yes and then I we agreed upon a time frame and the amount of work. We exchanged cards and then I left for work. Not many people know this but this was my very first big opportunity that could’ve taken my career off from the beginning because he was an established artist. Although I haven’t followed up that moment alone really made me realize what I could do when I worked hard and got out of my comfort zone and that whole experience shifted my reality ever since. Now fast forward 2-3 years later I have had 2 successful solo exhibitions and have been a part of several group shows and projects. Since then, I have made a fairly good name for myself just from persevering and not letting an indifferent art curator tell me how I should go about making my career. I make the rules and I make the art. If I say I am going to be a successful full-time artist, that’s what I am going to be. No matter what anyone else may think I should be doing, no matter the outcome, I have already predetermined that I will be successful so no outside noise will never stop me.
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?
For me, it’s the freedom that comes with this creative lifestyle and just the overall process of creating altogether that is the most rewarding for me. I honestly think that being an artist/creative entrepreneur comes more naturally to me than anything else I have ever done in my lifetime. What people may not understand is the lifelong discipline and commitment that comes with such a path. To become a successful, full-time artist you have to be willing to devote your entire life to making the best art you possibly can, expanding it, and releasing it for the world to see for the betterment of society and humanity. Being a great artist can lead you into doors that no other career can take you and there is no specific route that you have to take. You just have to be committed to your path throughout the hardships and struggles of everyday life. To truly have a fulfilling career in the arts, you have to love creating the work you do even if no one sees it or buys it. That is where your true strength comes from and is the ultimate fuel for great art and potentially creating great work of your lifetime. Creating is what gives me a purpose to wake up and it is the very same thing that gives me joy I’m grateful to this day that I chose to take my art career seriously and to pursue and eventually become a full-time artist.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jadegriffinstudio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/griffin_.jade/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jade.griffin.1088
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jadegriffinstudio/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/_griffinjade
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@JadeGriffinStudios
- Other: My Bi-weekly Newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/7758f9e4330f/jade-griffin-studio
