We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jennifer Way a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jennifer, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
After a long, violent, and mysterious illness, my late husband passed away in 2018. Much to my surprise, grief inspired me to write poetry. A friend then suggested I use my abstract painting to express more feelings about being cast out of my old life and forced into a new one.
Over time, I began to explore and understand some of what grief brought to me—gifts of wildness and clarity, solitude and intimacy, surrender and grace. These were very expensive and precious lessons and gifts, and I didn’t want to forget them as I built a new life.
That all turned into a 6 year project of exploring and documenting my feelings in a book of poetry and paintings I call, The Mysterious Gifts of Grief (wayofjen.com/pre-order). Each poem documents a specific moment or experience. I later realized I was gifted something in each of those circumstances—even if I didn’t realize it at the time. Every painting has a Morse code message embedded in it—encoded just like grief’s gifts felt hidden from me.
Everyone experiences grief in many forms and I’m hoping by exploring mine, it will be safer for people to look at their own. As unwelcome as it may have been, this new life is full of richness and love, I believe that’s in large part because I surrendered to grief entirely.
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 cultivate tremendous intimacy in my life and in my work. My art is an extension of that intimacy. Every piece uses my unique visual language to begin what I feel is an important conversation around the intersection of love, faith, and nature. I am drawn to the cyclical nature of life. Endings and beginnings are not nearly as clean or as cut and dry as we’re led to believe. This evolution should be documented and celebrated. It’s deep and solitary work.
Chasing awe in nature and in my art practice has brought me so much joy. I look for it in the simple sunrise or sunset, when the fish run the river, the northern lights, or just knowing the route of my local deer herd. But it’s also in the ache of yellow ochre, the weepiness of just the right shade of pink, or the celebration of chartreuse green. What I’m feeding myself visually inevitably comes out in my work. I try to capture milestones of the inner work that we all do, but maybe don’t talk about or even recognize or credit in ourselves.
Entrepreneurship is all about creating something from nothing. Entrepreneurs are artists and I have to be an entrepreneur to create a sustainable practice. For me, every collection I create is a thoughtful opportunity for connection. We experience the world through our senses, so I strive to find unique and inclusive ways to express my intentions. All my collections include some version of a signature scent, a playlist, a talisman to touch, and a taste. Sometimes I incorporate other mediums in addition to painting or maybe there’s an event, but there’s always an entire sensory experience to foster a deeper connection.
My collectors are often people I truly admire. They humble me when they use my art to surround themselves with something that inspires them to be brave, that reminds them of what they hold dear, that reflects their core meaning or how far they’ve come. Together, we celebrate the paradox that we each uniquely experience this life, but we are not alone.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
My creative journey is first for myself. It starts with a meditation on what I’m noticing. I have a diary of daily photographs. These visual prompts may capture a feeling or help me remember my life or document what is happening.
I also keep a running list of ideas that initially seem unrelated but have somehow captured my attention visually or emotionally. Poetic phrases, song lyrics, prayers, quotes—whatever. Over time, I start to notice a theme revealing itself to me. That’s kind of how I “gather my seeds” as Rick Rubin names it in his book, The Creative Act: A Way of Being.
Tools, medium, and technique are all subject to expressing meaning and connection for me. I’m almost agnostic as to methodology, though I’ve learned that it must be an organic use of the paint or medium as opposed to some shortcut or it doesn’t satisfy me in the least.
Then I pull relevant items together to see if the scope and scale of the idea is big enough to support a collection, a series, or just a painting or two. I debate about what to include or avoid or how I want to express something. I also like to write about the topic before I paint. I have to poke around in all the dusty corners to find my own mind about it and then I can get to expressing those feelings visually.
Have you ever had to pivot?
Transitions are so incredibly challenging whether they are forced on you or voluntary. I gave myself over entirely to grief, but I didn’t get stuck in it. I learned how to carry it. I remember in the first couple weeks after my late husband died, someone asked me why I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring and I told them it was because I was no longer married.
It didn’t matter that I still wanted my old life because I knew that life was over. I had to align with my new reality. The love from that life was forever—I held onto that, but I let everything else go. I couldn’t spend what very little energy I had at the time trying to hold on to what was already gone. Instead, I focused on investing in what was next. I gave myself permission to turn down everything that required energy that I didn’t have and I focused on trying to notice what felt like new life.
Over the last six years, I moved across the country, established a new art business, and built a beautiful new life with my now husband.
And that’s the thing about turning the corner and heading in a new direction—you never quite know what’s ahead. You just have to keep going. I learned that it’s important to be kind to yourself and conserve your energy as this is hard, exhausting work. The best advice I got was to “tell the truth of every moment” and eventually enough time passed that my new life revealed itself to me. This beautiful life grew out of ashes, as some of the best things do, and no one is more surprised than me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wayofjen.com
- Instagram: @wayofjen
Image Credits
Allen Clark
@allenclarkphotography