We recently connected with Jenn Shifflet and have shared our conversation below.
Jenn, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?
I started my artistic life at the age of 11 or 12 when my older brother, also an artist, started to teach me how to draw and paint, and gave me my first set of paints. Then, in a public high school with a great art program, I studied with a deeply dedicated art teacher who encouraged us to apply to all sorts of art competitions, juried shows and scholarships. Growing up just outside Washington D.C. I was surrounded by great art museums and art opportunities. I credit these things with jump starting my creative life. Later, I moved to CA where I got my MFA in Arts and Consciousness studies, focused on painting. several years later I also began studying working with kiln formed glass.
Knowing what I know now, I would have sought out professional development courses for artists, outside of school, in order to learn the business side of being an artist. Many art schools don’t even touch upon this aspect of being a creative, which is really unfortunate. Ultimately, as an artist I think it’s most important to develop your artistic visual language skills, but not having been taught how to run a business as an entrepreneur was a real obstacle to the development of my career. It slowed down the whole process of making a living as an artist and made it a greater struggle than it had to be. It took quite a bit of time to figure it all out nearly on my own through trial and error.
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 am a visual artist who paints, draws and works in kiln formed glass. I show my work in galleries, work with art consultants and occasionally do public art projects. My work explores the poetics of light, color, alchemy, reverence for the natural world, the feminine and the fleeting. In abstracted landscapes, I play with how light affects perception and how color creates a mood. There are repeating themes of phenomenological moments in nature like fogbows, rainbows, shifting clouds, moonbows and shimmering light on water. My work leans toward the contemplative as I try to create reverential connections between ourselves and the natural world. I use metallic pigments, mirrors, reflective materials to point to the ways in which the outer natural world mirrors our internal nature. I want my viewers to see themselves in my work, and therefore to see themselves as part of nature.
Part of why I started working with glass after being a painter for several decades is because of my interest in playing with light directly, rather than just alluding to it. Glass can be a challenging medium, but the opportunities to work with it symbolically are rich, from its transparency to its alchemical nature of being transformed by heat in a kiln. Currently I am pairing my love of painting with my love of glass by painting on glass with kiln fired enamels. I have been really inspired to learn some of the old master techniques used in the stained glass windows of old churches, putting these techniques to use in a contemporary context. My newest body of work currently in development explores this approach.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
I think that in order to have a healthy creative ecosystem and culture, the support for the arts needs to be part of the educational system, ideally from a young age, and throughout all levels of education for everyone. This is where an appreciation for the arts and creativity begins. As art programs in schools have died out, the younger generations are not being raised to understand the importance of the arts. This affects the larger society’s support of the creation of artistic work and appreciation of how all forms of creativity not only support individual artists, but our cultural landscape at large.
There also needs to be more programs like the 1% for the arts programs that promote bringing art into public and private environments through citywide programs that tie building infrastructure and large scale art placement together. Statewide programs that create grant opportunities for artists are also very important. I believe that the more support that a culture has for its creatives, the richer the culture will be for all those that live within it. This also means that people need to support living artists by buying their work!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
By nature of being someone who makes their living as an artist, I have had to develop my resilience over and over again. There are many ups and downs to an artistic career. Taking the kinds of chances, or leaps of faith that are required in an artistic career requires facing rejections and choosing to believe in yourself even when others don’t. Following the creative muse, which is necessary as an artist, doesn’t always align well with the commercial aspects of a creative career. It takes a deep belief in the work itself to keep going at times. The risks I’ve taken have always been worthwhile, and ultimately fulfilling, but not easy. Thankfully the payoffs that happen as a result of the risk taking really help to balance out the challenges! I think this is just part of how it is to be a professional artist living in a world that doesn’t offer as much support to artists as they really need to always do their best work. The building of resilience is a necessity.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.JennShifflet.com
- Instagram: Jenn.Shifflet
