We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Elaine Peete a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jennifer Elaine, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

God revealed my passion and natural talent of painting in the summer of 2015 after my ankle was fractured in three places making me immobile for 8 weeks. While I was healing, I decided to teach myself how to paint and develop my craft. It was like art therapy: comforting to the bones and soothing to the soul. I have always known how to draw and sketch, but it wasn’t until I picked up the paintbrush that I fell in love with creating masterpieces.

I posted my first painting on Instagram in September 2015, and she sold within 1 hour of posting her to a collector in the United Kingdom. After she sold, I applied for my EIN and business license and started selling paintings all over the United States. At that point, I knew that I wanted to pursue a creative path as a professional fine artist.

Jennifer Elaine, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I create phenomenal paintings that display Black women in a positive light, embracing their natural kinks and curls graced with melanin-rich skin. My art is internally driven, like a gateway to the soul. illustrating the beauty, power, dopeness, and resilience of Black women. I love big, natural Afrocentric hair and bright engaging colors, so most of my artwork displays Black women with kinky curly hair accompanied by a vibrant, colorful background.

Black art doesn’t receive as much exposure and publicity compared to other art genres. I plan to create several successful platforms to increase awareness for other Black artists and myself. In 2016, I created the Black Art Experience, a visual art showcase that has grown from 100 to 600+ attendees with 40 black artists and vendors. I also created the Art Social for a more intimate setting with artistic conversations amongst talented creatives and art lovers, along with educating patrons about the appreciation of art.

I opened my physical art gallery in Cordova, a suburb of Memphis, on November 23, 2019. I also feature and sell the artwork of 11 other talented Black artists in my gallery. I created a table, so that we can all eat!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I opened my gallery a few months before the ongoing pandemic hit the United States with a vengeance. I had to close the doors to my gallery in March 2020 due to a mandatory COVID quarantine in Memphis and all around the world. I had to pivot to ensure that my gallery would still produce income.

Since people were stuck in the house, they started decorating or re-decorating their homes and bought an abundance of ART! I increased my social media and email marketing, since the gallery doors had to be closed for a few months. Art was flying off the walls! At one point, we couldn’t produce art fast enough to meet the demand, so we literally had to produce masterpieces even faster.

I also created Paint Kits for people to do while in quarantine and to use as art therapy to escape from the pending uncertainty with the pandemic. I sold hundreds of paint kits, and decided to permanently make them available on my website.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I built my Instagram audience from 2k followers to 20k followers by being consistent and posting creative, engaging content. Using reels substantially grew my audience at an exponential rate. I’ve had several reels go viral on Instagram with over 800K views. My Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/orijennal_art

I also grew my TikTok from zero to almost 10k during the pandemic by being consistent and creating engaging videos.

My art sales, especially canvas print and fine art print sales increased substantially from both platforms!

My advice for those just starting to build their social media presence is to find what works best for your brand and learn the forever changing algorithms. Engage with your audience via the comments and respond to DMs. Engage with other creatives and potential clients. And ALWAYS stay CONSISTENT.

Contact Info:

• Website: orijennalart.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/orijennal_art
• Facebook: facebook.com/orijennalart