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

Jennifer, 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 have always had a more creative take on life. Writing, painting, photography, and drawing have always been there for me. I never had dreams of grandeur for my art, it was always something that I just had fun doing. I never even went to school for it, though I could have. I actually started my college adventure preparing to join the Police force with a background in Forensics.

That was nearly 3 decades, 3 kids and an all over lifetime ago. I never turned to my art fully since then, except for gifts, and a few scattered commissions. I did, however, do just about everything else a person could, sometimes having up to 3 jobs at once, while being a single mom. I’ve worked at medical clinics, as a secretary, property management and maintenance, warehouses, construction, as a valet, and even as a fruit expert for Edible Arrangements, just to name a few. If people were willing to pay, I was willing to work, and it was nonexistent for me to stay less than a year at any place. I became a literal Jill of all Trades. It is something that has helped me more often than not.

Through it all though, I always had art. My kids getting a bit of the creative gene helped too. They enjoy sculpting, writing and drawing, and it has kept me going. I got to help with their projects both personal and in school. Everyone once in a while I’ll dip back in and make something to sell that even I’m slightly impressed by. That was one of the driving factors in purchasing Pinot’s Palette a year ago. I wanted to focus on my art. I enjoyed seeing people have fun when I was teaching as an instructor at the studio and just really wanted to keep going with that.

Focusing more on Pinot’s Palette we offer both public and private events, which includes mobile. Our range stretches from Geneva to the East, Brookpark to the West, and Akron to the South. Bridal showers, baby showers, birthdays, bachelorettes, and corporate events are just a few of our private parties. We offer, take home kits and online videos of our paintings to rent. We don’t just offer canvas or step by step classes either. There are several bases, such as wine bottles, wood pallets, canvas bags and you can even bring your own jackets to paint during open studio sessions. A popular fall/winter event are our Chunky Knit Blanket classes.

I could go on about how I try to keep us the cheapest Paint & Sip option in Cleveland, because I can understand the struggle of being able to get a day out without breaking the bank. It’s true but I don’t believe that’s fully what sets us apart. If I had to, I would like to say that our staff is what sets us apart. We come from different backgrounds and have widely different personalities. One thing we do agree on is our love of art. It is a job but it’s that job you have to escape your other jobs. Where you get to have fun, chat and be creative. We love to help people make their paintings their own or try their best to match the picture they saw on the event calendar.

We are here because we enjoy seeing people have fun doing something we love.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

This has been said so often but please, stop undervaluing artists. My response is even going to slide into rant territory starting with – Stop asking us to do things for free or for “exposure”. I can’t fill my tank with exposure. I’m sure, in our social media driven society, that many people have heard the horror stories of being an artist of any kind. TikTok and Reddit are flooded with them.

Like any business trying to survive in an electronically driven world, we need to advertise to get business. We need online stores to be successful. But our work is constantly stolen, copied, plagiarized – just because it is online or reposted to Pinterest doesn’t mean that it is free license.
Give credit, if you like that image for a tattoo – or better yet ask if you can use the image from the original artist. You googled the picture you can do one more search to find the original artist. You never know what the meaning could be behind that design. I actually had a very meaningful tattoo design I had paid commission for and given permission to the artist to post on her site – under watermark and copyright – stolen and tattooed on 3 other women, one even featured in a magazine. I just wish I could have thanked them for getting a tattoo representing my dead child and grandfather on their bodies forever, just because they thought it was a cool design. I have not gotten the tattoo because of that.
This extends to Alibaba, Amazon stores and Wish too. Those prints that are so cheap, many of them are stolen work.

So many people think, “oh, it’s just art. You can draw it again”, or “It doesn’t even take you that much to do it.” Just because I can do a standard painting in an hour or two doesn’t mean that my skill isn’t worth it. Just because that guy can draw a caricature in 20 minutes – same thing. You can’t do it, that’s why you are buying it. Some works take months of planning, reworking and finishing. This is maybe 2hours or 15 hours per day, whenever the ability hits us. It’s our time, skill, stress and out of pocket inventory. So yes, those deposits on commissions are non-refundable. If you paid us, and we worked on a piece, reviewed it with you multiple times, got all the way to the end and now you “found it somewhere cheaper”… No, you aren’t getting your money back because I might not be able to sell that piece depending on how personalized it is.
If we recommend a particular type of shipping, we are sorry it’s so expensive, but we are not responsible for the post, and it is probably the best insured and safest way to ship.

Yes, I have supply I can pull from. But I have to replace that supply when I’m done with your piece. That is why we charge what we charge, and thanks to the recent economic issues and pandemic, items that once cost us a few dollars have doubled or tripled in cost if we can even get them.

We are skilled labor. Some are faster and better than others. Some take their time and produce amazing intricate quality on teeny tiny items. Some 3d print or pour their work. Not one single artist is any less than the other and deserves to be paid and credited for their work. This extends to musicians, writers, and artists.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

My personal opinion on NFTs… It’s the dumbest thing I’ve seen since, well, there’s a lot in our world today that confounds me. This is just the latest. I might be a bit old school but there’s just something about purchasing anything that is only electronic. You can look at it on a tablet, a phone, a pc but you don’t actually possess it. Print it and hang it for display and there is no value. You get to own the original traceability of it in code and the image. That’s where the value is.

I guess, in the long run, I just don’t trust the viability and safety of our global internet and electronics enough to own something I can’t physically possess. A big point of art is to be viewed or heard or read.

Yes, fires, floods, theft, war and all sorts of stuff happens to physical items, but at least some random idiot with a computer and menial virus making skills can’t take out millions of dollars’ worth of them from multiple fronts. Point: You can just redo the code! You can’t just redo a Master painting. True, the original code can be copied but doesn’t that make it kind of worthless if it can just be rebooted? The point of something rare and valuable is that it can’t be rebooted. It’s original.

Not to say I wouldn’t hop on the band wagon if I thought I could make a profit myself. I just don’t get them. To each their own though.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pinotspalette.com/woodmere
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pinotspalettewoodmere/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PinotsPaletteWoodmere/

Image Credits
Personal Image – Jenna Harms All art presented is copyrighted intellectual property of Pinot’s Palette and painted by Jennifer Harms