We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jenny Lee Maas. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jenny Lee below.

Jenny Lee, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.

To be an artist and business owner taking risks is required again and again. I would say the decision to follow my own path was and still is the greatest risk. I have had many other jobs and in all of them I felt a lack of fulfillment for various reasons; everything from low wadges, mistreatment, not being considered as an equal creative to my coworkers and simply just that it wasn’t a place for me to push myself creatively.
I grew up really shy, so over the years I have shared all these other forms of art but live voice related things was intimidating. So my most recent risk has been pushing myself out of that zone. I started recording music, for the pandemic until fairly recently it has all been released online so there is still a comfort zone. Now that I’ve started releasing songs from my first solo full length album, Phenomenology, I have been playing live to prepare myself for a release show. To do this I have been trying various approaches; playing some small shows where its just me and my guitar, attending jams where it’s really about listening and responding for good improvisation and getting used to playing with a band and one solo show where I played several instruments. All different approaches, all with different elements to be aware of. To further push myself I have recently performed at some stand up comedy’s as well, this has a whole different stage presence then music, but I do feel that because they are both forcing me into a spotlight they have overlapping qualities, there is a rhythm to comedy as well.
And then there’s the fashion! My first fashion photo shoot was a success in the sense that some blogs shared it and it gave me the momentum to continue. The photos were so good that I got offered to do a runway show, a long time dream of mine, so I said yes and did it despite not having taken more then one intro to sewing class in high school, despite having about a $300 budget, despite having no experience with runways shows. I did since high school have a collection of fabric that intimidated me, I didn’t feel good enough to use it, so I saved it in the hopes that one day I would have a fashion show, so this invite seemed to be a longtime dream come true, so I went for it and gave it my best. It went well so I got invited to do several more shows in Philly, NJ and NYC. When I started this I was still doing artist assistant work in the daytime so it was exhausting, but I wasn’t fulfilled at work so I knew if I continued to try my best elsewhere I may be able to design my way out of what wasn’t working. That said, it all sounds great, but it was exhausting and I do have an autoimmune disorder so I was having some difficult times managing it all. No doubt the flare ups were at least in part because of all the work I was doing. My work offered no health insurance either, making every aspect of getting treatment more time consuming. For years I was balancing both of these things and didn’t have much of a social life because of it, part of the sacrifice I suppose.
And again, I was often too shy to put myself out there as a model, so I started modeling my own pieces and often was the photographer as well. Women are critiqued for everything so there is a certain anxiety to being a model, but once again, push yourself out of your comfort zone!
I still and will always use fine art as a creative outlet as well. It’s another form of having a creative voice. Fine art is important because since the beginning of time it has been the only place to express and challenge what we are not supposed to speak of in terms of various normalized oppressions, for that reason it encourages revolutions and always has. It’s another language of texture, color, shape, dimension and emotion. This approach of using your voice is quite different, because after you make the piece and walk away, it’s still communicating something to everyone who looks upon it with their own filters. Through this medium I have taken many risks in terms of subject, content as well as experimenting with materials. I like art because there’s so much room to challenge how people think and offer your own perspective whether it be political, tactile or aesthetic. To be an artist one must continually take risks.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

About me: My name is Jenny Lee Maas I am a multi media artist currently based in Philadelphia PA..
I have several projects going on and like to experiment in various fields;

-Zen Fuzz is my music project where I write, sing, perform and produce my own music. Sometimes I go by Jenny or Jlee for this.

-J.L.Maas is my fashion line that is unique glamours fashion with elements of the avant-garde. I started out sewing everything myself but recently Ive been trying to figure out how to have it manufactured.

-Neutral Sparkle is my fashion line that is eco friendly and upcycled everyday active wear. I am an athlete with sensitive skin so this made sense to me, plus I want to create more sustainable consumption patterns. I feel like if I’m going to manufacture something I want it to solve some of the normal toxic problems in fashion today.

-Stoic Muse Productions is the label that I use for video and photography production. I have experience in shooting, editing and directing projects.

-Healing Guts is a blog that I have for eating consciously for managing auto immune disorders

Any fine art I make I release under my full name, I paint, sculpt and experiment with materials. I feel like as an artist it’s important to find time to just play, this helps me have epiphanies that end up informing future projects.

So the services I provide are all creative and in many different outlets. I think what sets me apart is that I see all of these practices as connected in the sense that they do inform each other despite seeming very different.
I would say I’m most proud of my ability to be resourceful and pivot when necessary. Working this way is somewhat intuitive and lets me try what speaks to me. My next big step is to focus on the business aspect and really grow my company. Being self taught it sometimes feels overwhelming, but I don’t see any other way forward, so I keep trying.
The main thing I would want people to know about me is that at heart I am an artist and adventurer. Sometimes I find that to fully express myself is terrifying, but that’s precisely why I keep pushing myself to better articulate myself and my vision. As a woman it is easy to get pushed around by others ideas of what you should be, so I find it important to take some regular thinking time to keep refining what it means to be true to myself and toss away all the programmings projected onto me. I suggest everyone make a regular habit of this. I’m not perfect at it, but I certainly have grown over the years.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I think my resilience is simply the fact that I keep pushing myself into new art forms (design, music, video, fine art etc.) I don’t always have the education or proper budget to start but I remain relentless in teaching myself and being resourceful, taking risks, and sticking around, even when it gets difficult. When I had my first opportunity to do a runway show I ran with it! I made some new things to fill the number of requested looks and mixed it with other garments that I had made in college for fun and performance art, as well as some music video wardrobe commissions. I arranged it by color to create a visual flow since the themes were eclectic, and it worked well, the flood looked great! Now when I started this I had about a $300 budget, my materials being a mix of up cycled bits, some new fabrics that I collected and curated over the years as well as some factory scraps. I was nervous, feeling like I was not as established as other designers, but I went for it knowing that I was taking a risk of failure. And it did well, which led to more runway opportunities. I did this for a while, I was struggling because I was spread too thin in assisting others as an artist, navigating my new autoimmune disorder diagnosis (and for a while without insurance), as well as working on all aspects of my art, music and design business’s. It was a lot to say the least, after a while I had to start getting in the habit of saying ‘no’ to various shows and jobs since I needed to think about building the business infrastructure. This is around when the pandemic hit, and I had been recovering from my first hospital stay due to auto immune issues so it was clear I needed rest. During the pandemic I did some research on how to properly build a business and began to learn recording music. I always wanted to make more music, but when I was always spread thin it was hard to, so I took the pandemic lull as an opportunity to focus on that. I should also mention that of all the art forms performing and specifically using my voice was always the most difficult for me to do. I release music under the name Zen Fuzz I have released an EP, started releasing tracks from a full length solo album and practicing performing live so that I can prepare myself for a release show (TBD). I have also been making some music videos. And now that this music project is getting out there, I have more people asking about my fashion so its about time to pivot back to fashion more than I have been recently. Resilience is a balance, and it’s funny because in some ways I lack confidence but the fact that I never gave up is proof that maybe though sometimes I feel a lack of confidence, my actions prove that I still do believe in myself, even in those wavering moments, and that’s what resilience is about.

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

I feel like my whole creative journey has been a ongoing series of pivoting. For a while I was assisting on public art, and though it helped me learn the process it wasn’t my designs that I was fabricating and it was difficult to have a steady and comfortable income. It lacked insurance too, so I felt if I was going to be taking these kinds of risks I should be putting my work first. During this time I was building my website, and social media presence while taking on occasional commissions for special occasion wear, costumes, applying to fine art shows and finding a few ways of incorporating music in between all of this. On top of that I was navigating the ups and downs of my auto immune disorder, which at times was debilitating. I had thought of how with my work I had these big moments of labor, whether it be an install or a show deadline and the inconsistency of strength building that I would do, I ended up loving climbing and would use it as a way to keep my body in a more consistent pattern of use, learning the difference between positive and negative stress. So I feel like to to do it all, learning how to pivot is essential. Plus things aren’t always going to go how you expect or want them to so it’s good to have various projects.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jlmaas.space
• Instagram: jenny_lee_maas , zen_fuzz , j.l.maas , nuetral_sparkle , healing_guts
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JennyLeeMaas , https://www.facebook.com/zenfuzz , https://www.facebook.com/NeutralSparkle , https://www.facebook.com/healingguts
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ZenFuzz
• Other: On Spotify and Bandcamp as Zen Fuzz

Image Credits

All image credits Jenny Lee Maas except:
The runway collage Mikhail Veter
The video still of the performance film Procession At Dawn by Dan McBride