We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jeffie Brewer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jeffie below.

Alright, Jeffie thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

I make a living from these silly things, I know right? I was a professor for 20 years. I always struggled with being an artist and an academic. For me, I couldn’t do both. Either I was a good teacher or a good artist. Some years a would push the art to the side to focus on being a better educator and other years I would do the opposite. In the past ten years, the market made the choice for me – people dig my stuff so now I’m just an artist. It was a tough choice, it’s a real hustle. Teaching can be a less stressful gig with not too many real impediments, note I said: “can be”. To make the leap into the free market was scary, to say the least. Fortunately it was a gradual transition, I started getting into shows and galleries and some public works while I was teaching. I could have probably skipped a few steps in this journey but it would have definitely changed the outcome. It sounds hoaky but for anyone trying to make it happen, set goals. Set three goals, an easy, moderate, and hard one and when you check one add one. I always tell young artists there are three things to making it and you only have to do two well.
1. Be on time- Get the work done, call and email the people back, do the work on time. It’s a job.
2. Make something good- something that will sell, engage, make people stop and react to.
3. Don’t be an asshole (jerk if we’re PG)- Be nice to people, help others out, share your knowledge.
As I said you only need 2- if you are on time and make cool stuff… you can be a jerk. If you have to.

Jeffie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up in a small town in East Texas where my father owned a scrap/junkyard. It was the ’70s-’80s just before technology made us all dead-eyed zombies. Being an only child and living in the country surrounded by something as visually rich as piles of metal and stacks of old cars, I don’t think I had much of a choice but to be an artist. I was drawn to the metal, rust, and lines. In the junkyard I learned about welding, cutting and bending metal, hydraulics, heavy machinery, and so much more. Out of undergraduate school I started making signs and one day I was putting up a billboard – it was rainy and cold and there were powerlines and the billboard was impossible to get to. It required ladders on buildings and it all was very sketchy (not OSHA-safe). I had an epiphany up there that I wanted to get my MFA. I climbed down and the next day I applied to graduate school. Two weeks later I was a TA in a jewelry class.
I went on to teach and be a professor for 20 years. Since leaving academia in 2019, all I do is make things – from 1” to 30’. I will say that I am very privileged to get to make things and that people enjoy them – it’s a very lucky life.

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

About ten years ago I installed one of my first public art pieces in a park in Charleston South Carolina. I had been making things for a while and had plenty of art shows and experiences but this one really opened my eyes. I unloaded this 11’ bunny shape from my truck bolted it down and moved my truck back to the parking lot. I stopped in the restroom and when I came out the piece was swarming with kids. It was a class field trip to the park and they were spiraling around it. Public art is my mission. There is an interaction you cannot get from a museum or a gallery. Everyone goes outside! I proselytize for art, I am a converter of the aesthetically challenged. I want everyone on the ship, no art snobs here.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I believe we all have the capacity to be a creative people. We all make creative choices every day – what color shirt to wear, the music we listen to, and the shape, color, and texture of any item we deem to find interesting enough to purchase and use. Our existence consists of creative choices. Some of us just manifest it into stuff. The vast majority of us learn to write, drawing is the same learned skill set. If we all started drawing lessons in kindergarten we’d have a society of drawing machines. This, for me, would be the thing that would help support artists. To demystify it. It’s not magic, I’m not a shaman. A society that sees art as a practical function of existence would be the ecosystem I’m up for.

Contact Info:

• Website: jeffiebrewer.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeffie_brewer/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeffiebrewer
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffieBrewer