We recently connected with Jessica Kurnas and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I do wish I started on my creative career sooner. In part though, I don’t fault myself for starting when I did down this long not-so-often traversed road. I do not come from a family of creatives and I do feel like if you have some sort of figure already there in your life who has been making money off creative works and services, it significantly benefits you. There has definitely been some frustration in my life that was caused by lack of having such an individual being there for me. Sometimes, I feel like I have successfully built a rocket through experimentation and a couple YouTube videos and now I am finally on my way to the moon. Even my college professors were not able to fully prepare me for this career on their own. This is not to discredit what I learned in college or what I was taught but it’s different. There’s a huge difference between being a teacher of the arts and being a mentor and what either can offer someone. A person who is working in the field, is who you want to glean more information from.

If I could turn back time, I would have skipped college and studied direct with various working artists in the field. My best advice to people who want to avoid what I went through, start with Schoolism. It’s an online resource to creatives made possible by Bobby Chiu. It’s only $30 a month and it has so many courses available to artists. It’s a great place to begin that is low in cost.

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.

I have been an artist since I was 3 years old. My first medium was lipgloss and my first surface that I created on was my bedroom wall, much to my parents chagrin. They had no idea what they were in for. I’m originally from Williamsburg Viriginia where I also attended college at Virginia Commonwealth University graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree. I knew I wanted to be an artist of some kind at age 15. That’s not to say I knew what I wanted to do. I originally thought I wanted to be an animator for animated film, and it evolved from that to working in game design to being the sort of freelance artist that I am today.

For the most part, I paint wildlife using acrylics.

I want to show people through my work, that animals are people too. When I say “black bear” an image comes to your mind. What probably does not come to mind, is multiple images of black bears, all with different faces. And yet, these bear-people do have different faces, just as they have different personalities and characters. I want to raise an awareness, that they are more like us, humans, than we give them credit for. My hope is that if more people see them as another kind of people, like us, and that they will care more for them.

People are able to connect with my work – because we have all stood in the presence of another creature and have been taken away by them. I always hope I can capture the ‘why’ on canvas.

In an age of mostly digital artists and now AI work, I feel like I have an upper-hand as an artist. Lots of art is made every day, lesser of it is made by hand or brush and is made by a person. I got here by working hard…and so can anyone else who puts in the time and effort. It takes years of experience but so much is possible with hard work, dedication and lots of patience.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

My best advice to those who want to support artists and creatives or to people who induldge in any media be it books, movies/films, videogames, board games to opera is to support a living artist. There are 8 billion of us on this little blue/green planet and if we all just support ONE artist, that would be so many individuals to lifted up to continue in what they are trying to acheive. There truly is no better time to be an artist. Follow and like their posts, commission them, buy a print every once in a while, follow them on patreon and connect with them. They are here for you, be there for them!

Have you ever had to pivot?

I used to be many things for sake of making a living, this includes, working at a bank, being a frameshop manager, working at a time-share, working at a horse stable, working at a school, being a retail manager, and working at a book-store. Sometimes, we have to make ends meet and we are forced to work jobs we otherwise may not have selected for ourselves. Not everyone is able to to support themselves on just art or creative services. And sometimes, this field really takes time and not everyone gets there in the same amount of time. Extraordinary work requires an extraoridinary amount of time being in the craft. As an artist, you really have to give yourself grace. We are all coming from different places and backgrounds and we can’t expect to fit in the same cookie-cutter as someone else who may be in the field. You never know their full-story.

I’ve had to go from part-time artist to full-time artist at a couple stages in my life and back again because things are always changing. It is what it is but working part-time as an artist did have wonderful learning experiences too, especially socially.

Contact Info:

• Website: jkurnasdesign.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jkurnasdesign/
• Other: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/JkurnasDesign

Image Credits
All images were taken by me!