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

Jennifer, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had started sooner?

If I had started making my own work sooner, or kept at it out of college, I don’t think it would look like it does now. My work is very different than what I was doing early on – and where I am now is not really a natural evolution. My early work is large scale still life imagery, using found objects, tools, and other machinery as subject matter. I still return to that sometimes, but more often now I play with shape and abstract designs, and turn them into patterns. I have a degree in printmaking, and have always been passionate about the practice. But, as happens, other things took priority. I moved abroad after school to teach, I got married and had kids, got divorced, and have had a corporate career for the last two decades. So, other priorities.
In the first decade of corporate, I worked in home textile design. I was employed by a large manufacturer, and oversaw the design and printing of sheets and comforters for the mass market (WalMart and Target, mostly). It’s super exciting to see the work you did in a major retailer, even if it’s not the most creative design. Through that job, I was also able to travel around the US and other parts of the world, working with manufacturers, attending trade shows, and visiting clients.
Textile design has had a great influence on my current practice. I enjoy the puzzle of how to make a pattern out of the block I’m working on, and how colors and shapes overlap to create new imagery in the pattern. It is a natural evolution of this practice to print on fabrics. I’ve reproduced my designs on shirts, home textiles, and silk scarves.

Jennifer, 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 make woodcut prints, and turn them into artwork and patterns for fabrics. Using a series of woodblocks, all created on a similar scale and ratio, I can make overlapping designs, repeated designs, and any other combination of shapes and colors. Every piece I make is a unique print, no two are alike even though I’ve used the same blocks to create them. I print most of my works by hand, on my kitchen island. The hand printing is part of what makes each piece unique – the texture and overlapping of colors changes depending on the material and how much pressure I can apply myself. I use my designs to create t-shirts, fabric yardage, home textiles, and works on paper.
Carving the block is like a meditation for me. I spend a lot of pre-block time drawing and redrawing, to get the best composition. Once the block is drawn, it’s all carving time. I make my knives follow the drawn lines, and I relax my mind into it. I usually keep a drawn block on my desk, so when I am in a long conference call, I have something to do with my hands. A small block can take an afternoon to cut; one of the larger blocks will take a few weeks.
This practice is what I dedicated a lot of my quarantine time to during COVID. I started out making a series of postcards and sending them to friends, in an effort to remain connected without a digital interface, and to make my art practice more fun. Through the postcards project, I could play with color and shape, type of paper, and overlapping different blocks. This project got me out of my comfort zone and encouraged me to work with color and abstracted images, instead of always using black and realistic imagery.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Making the work is the most rewarding aspect of my journey, but exposing other people to my techniques is the second most rewarding part. I taught school briefly after college, and watching my students discover a new art concept or a new technique was very fulfilling. This past summer, I participated in a live art-making event. The challenge was to create a series of prints about the four Elements during one afternoon, in August, outside. Printing outside has lots of potential pitfalls, because ink can be very sensitive to heat and humidity, and because it’s messy and needs a lot of space.
Out of the five participating artists, I was the only printmaker. My setup took up a full table, which drew a lot of attention. I had two small blocks and some small paper, and anyone who came by was invited to make their own print. The look of delight when a passerby pulled a print was so exciting. Several people remarked that they had not done this since elementary school, and it was fun to be able to show them how the thing they learned as a kid could be made into a larger work of art.

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

During the recession in 2010, I was laid off from my role in textiles. It was a difficult experience, because I had worked in that industry for more than ten years, was close friends with my colleagues, and I had planned to grow in that role. Because of the timing of the layoffs, I was given a scholarship to return to school, which I used to take graphic design classes at a local community college. These classes saved me, because at the same time that I was out of work, I had two small kids and my relationship was falling apart. Having a class to attend every day gave me a purpose and a schedule. I cannot overstate how important that was for me. In addition, I was learning something that enhanced the skills I already had from my corporate experience.
By taking those classes, I was able to pivot my career from textiles into technical writing and illustration. My current corporate role is not nearly as exciting as the former, but I have enhanced my practical skills, both in computer rendering and hand work, and have learned to think in three dimensions. I even have to use math sometimes at work, which I never thought I would do with an art degree. This field is a growing one, but not a very creative one, so at the end of the day I have the energy and the finances to make my own artwork.
Another thing that these classes gave me that is less tangible is access to the local arts community. Through projects and classes at the local college, I met other artists, designers, writers and musicians who would form the basis of my post-divorce social life. Through these friendships, I’ve been able to access arts opportunities, learn new skills, and have support as I work on my own craft.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jenngarrisonart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jenngarrison_art/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenngarrisonart

Image Credits
all photos are by me and Kate Duncan