We were lucky to catch up with Jen Alt recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jen, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

My most meaningful piece is one of the first tufted wall rugs I ever made. It holds great meaning because of what it represents to me. In it I see vulnerability and subsequent strength in allowing myself to play with materials and a medium virtually unknown to me. It also helps that I was falling in love with the medium at the same time. It reminds me that there is power in following your intuition. I love the textural and sculptural aspects of tufting. You can create so much dimension with a single color in a tufted wall rug. In this piece I feel that I was able to trust the process and ended up with a work that I love.

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’m a self-taught artist who has followed many life paths including dancer, magazine production manager and expressive arts therapist. Art and creative expression have been the continuous threads throughout all of my various careers. Now art helps me anchor, as I focus on my role as a parent. After all, parenting is a creative process. I called my business Intuitive Mess because I believe in the power of intuition and creative expression. Humans are messy; life is messy; sometimes our intuition is messy, but that is ok. I want to give space to the idea that life is an experiment, we are all doing our best. Beauty can come from mess. It can come from the messiness of being human.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

I think that creative expression can be a tool for deeper connection with yourself. Throughout my life creativity has been my anchor, particularly in times that I have struggled to find words. This is one of the values I see in creativity. At this point in my journey, I hope to delve deeper into the ways that creativity and artistic expression can help me embrace my own humanness. To me this means my foibles and my strengths.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Having the tools to explore and understand my experience non-linearly, in a way that taps more into emotion than cognition.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.intuitivemess.com
• Instagram: intuitivemess_seattle

Image Credits

all images are by Jennifer Alt and show the work of Jennifer Alt