Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jenny Lanna. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi Jenny, thanks for joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

The most honest answer I have to this question is also the one that no one wants to hear. I learned how to do what I do by simply doing it and doing it often. The different painting techniques I have acquired were not taught to me, I developed them by working at them every day and making mistakes all the time. Something I could have done to speed up my process of learning would be to not have gotten frustrated with failure. When I was really learning how to paint, I would get frustrated easily and I would end up doing anything to avoid dealing with those mistakes, Now, I am someone who embraces them and works at those features until I can get it to translate to others the way I visualized it in my head. That doesn’t always work out the way I hope, but I’ve learned to love the process and development of my work. An essential skill for me was patience, with both myself and with the materials I was working with. An obstacle that stood in the way would be my stubbornness of trying to force the paint to do something it didn’t want to do. I had to find a melody and rhythm with my medium, a balance of control and release.

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 person who always felt a love for being creative and making things. There were several years of my life where that was the goal, it didn’t matter what I was making, as long as I was making something. Slowly but surely the dream to be a painter in a gallery took root and began to grow. While I was in college I made the drastic scholastic change from science to art. I had to give it a shot. While attending college, I apprenticed and eventually became a full time tattoo artist. This would be my way to start to make money while still being creative, While I tattooed professionally, I worked on my painting at home. I worked with and under other artists to learn as much as I could about the fine art world and how to navigate in it. After years of working and creating constantly, I had my first real chance in a gallery. The start was slow and fine tuning my visual skills to say the things my words couldn’t took time. I am proud to create work that is visually striking and reminds me (as well as viewers) that there is beauty and serenity in the world.

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

The most rewarding part of being an artist is that it reminds people to find that love or passion in life. For me, it”s always an amazing feeling to create the artwork. But I have learned that there is a feeling just a bit better, and that is seeing the look in someone’s eye saying “wow, I want to do what I love too”. Being a full time artist often reminds others that they don’t have to follow the social norms of life and they can truly follow their dreams. Sometimes those dreams and passions don’t always mean career changes, sometimes they’re just hobbies. For me though, sharing my love for creating and allowing that to inspire others is the most rewarding part.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

For me a lesson to unlearn was the concept we have of “perfection”. I remember when I first started creating art, I would work on a piece endlessly until it felt “perfect”, but there is no perfect. Leonardo Da Vinci said it best: “art is never finished, only abandoned”. For me, this was one of the hardest pills to swallow. I had to take a step back and start to accept the moment where you just have to stop and accept and appreciate the work as is.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.jennylanna.com
• Instagram: @jenny.kiku
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenny.lannatattoo/