We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jessie Sullivan. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jessie below.
Hi Jessie , thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
I never expected to make my customers cry when I started my small business. I have been creating for as long as I can remember, but after high school, Covid threw a wrench into the plan I thought I had. I was forced to take a step back from art school and art took a backseat in my life. For a while, it seemed as though creating would not be something I had the privilege to focus on. Around this time, I was randomly given the opportunity to take a custom pet portrait commission for an old music teacher of mine. Though this wasn’t something I had specialized in before, I felt drawn to the project. That pencil drawing would be the first of more than fifty pet portrait commissions I have taken in the last two years. Every time someone new reaches out to me, I am challenged to capture the personality and unique sparkle of each furry family member. This has become something I take pride in and I love meeting the people in my community who care so much about local art as well as the animals in their lives! Something that surprised me as I progressed through piece after piece was how many people were looking to have memorial portraits done of pets they loved that had passed. This presented itself as challenging in a new way, as I was tasked with capturing an energy that had been missing and returning that to people’s lives. Even now, as I spend days on each piece, I don’t stop working until the life has been brought back into each drawing and it can be very rewarding to see the recognition in the eyes of my customers when they receive their portraits. If I am greeted with tears and smiles, I know it is a job well done!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Jessie Sullivan, I am 23, from Massachusetts, and I am an artist! I know every artist says it, but I truly have always loved to create. As much of my life as I can remember I have been the designated art friend in my groups. I have always loved all my art classes and signed up for more whenever I had the chance. In high school, I volunteered to help teach elementary schoolers the fundamentals of art and was one of two kids in my AP drawing and painting class! After graduating, I spent a summer as one of the arts and crafts counselors at a summer camp in North Carolina and then started my college journey at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Unfortunately, when Covid began, I was forced to take a step back from art school after just my freshman year. There was a portion of my life where art was slipping through my fingers and my supplies sat untouched for months. I was lucky enough to break out of this after doing a custom pet portrait for someone and quickly re-sparking my love for art! Since then, I have been drawing, painting, flower pressing, and always exploring new mediums! My pencil pet portrait business is what I am known for in my small town and where my passions truly lie. I have done dozens of custom drawings and each one is made with care and patience. I believe in the process and never stop drawing until I feel as though the life of the pet can be felt through the piece. Something about watching my customers connect so deeply with a drawing on paper will never get old. I hope to expand my portraits into new styles and mediums but for now, I love what I do and am beyond grateful that I had the community to support me through it all!
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
Something I have always struggled to respond to is “You are so talented!”. I am always so grateful for the compliment and honored that my work is being admired in this way but what separates me from others isn’t talent, it’s the desire to create. As much of my life as I can remember has been focused on art and creativity. While I am proud of the work that I put out, it was a long road to get to the caliber of work I have now, and it will be a much longer road until I reach the level I strive for. I wasn’t creating masterpieces in elementary school, I’m sure I wasn’t even above average. I just loved art. Throughout my school years, I would doodle on every piece of homework, classwork, and just about any paper I had my hands on at the time. I wanted to be the one to personalize the posters, the one to illustrate the water cycle for my group. As time passed, the desire to reach further pushed me to sign up for more art classes and to bring that love for art home. There was no natural talent causing well-executed projects to fall into my lap. There were hours of drawing, painting, color-matching, and erasing before I even started to notice improvement above what my peers were doing. My passion for art is what has propelled me to be lucky enough to do projects now that build me not just a profit but also a customer base that feels comfortable trusting me with material that is very meaningful to them. When I deliver final pieces to their new homes and my customers say they could never draw like me it is always a little amusing because honestly I couldn’t either until I worked for it. I love making things that people will hopefully cherish and I’m proud of the amount of work that truly has gone into it!
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
In the world we are living in right now, the best way society can keep supporting artists is to keep searching out handmade art when so many other options are quickly becoming available. The creative community is built on many years of studying, working, learning, and practicing and is not something that can be replicated by AI and maintain the same level of authenticity and meaningfulness. While I understand it may be easier to quickly generate free art in seconds than to search out a real artist, the art being created is not only hurting artists that could have taken that opportunity but it is also stealing from totally random artists online. When AI image generating uses sources from the internet to create imaging, the artist who created the source is having their time and money stolen and may not even be aware. If there is a specific style that you love or an artist you look up to, reaching out to that person and commissioning the art you want will always be the best way to keep the creative ecosystem alive. Funding the arts keeps them around and allows important work to be created.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @Scubatoast
- Facebook: Jessie Sullivan (https://www.facebook.com/jessie.sullivan.7165/)