We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jill Perry Townsend a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jill Perry, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about the best boss, mentor, or leader you’ve ever worked with.

Years ago I worked for a graphics design firm, and there I got a project to do work for ocean conservation. I threw myself into the project, because to do art for nature seemed to me to be the best thing I could imagine doing. The budget was small, but I was willing to contribute time on my own in order to finish the project. My boss at the graphics firm was not happy I had donated my own time, and, short story, I left that job. The conservation organization, however, wanted me to work for them as their art director. The first time I met their board of directors the president of the organization, Roger McManus, introduced me as, “the person we have hired to upgrade the quality of our publications.” I took that as my mission statement, and tried with every new publication to make it better than before.

Roger always trusted and believed in me. His trust was fuel to my fire. Once when I was designing a poster to encourage people not to throw plastics in the ocean, I wanted to use Popeye the Sailor to be the spokesman for our clean ocean campaign. Once we had permission, the poster evolved to be a whole campaign, including a 30 second fully animated Popeye cartoon PSA, with an 800 number that was answered by Popeye. It was going to be very expensive to produce, and we weren’t sure we’d be able to raise the money. Happily, a donor contributed a huge check to produce it. Roger handed me the check and said, “Go do it.” I was overwhelmed. I said, Roger, I am not sure that this will work to achieve what we want. He said, “neither am I, but everything in me says that it will.” I received an art director’s award for the campaign.

Roger’s trust and belief in me meant the world to me then, and still does.

I have returned to and gone on to other art forms since then, sculpture and plein air painting. I believe that Roger’s faith in me helped encourage me as I have tried new things.

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 have two major branches to my creative life – plein air painting and figurative sculpture.

I paint outdoors in oils with a palette knife. I love how I am able to respond quickly to the light and changes in the weather. By using a knife I can quickly change colors by simply wiping the knife on a rag. The color stays clean and vibrant. I love adventuring out into wild and gorgeous places, and capturing the light, atmosphere, and color of my experience. Some have called my work impressionist, but I feel that I’m more of an expressionist impressionist. I see color and push it further.

In 2001 I was so impacted by the stories of people impacted by the attacks on 9/11. I remember being stopped at a light in my car, waiting for people to cross the street. A couple took hands, looked at each other, and then looked straight ahead as they crossed the street. I imagined they were saying with that look, “we’re about to cross the street right now. I don’t know if we’ll make it to the other side, but if we don’t, know that I love you.”

It occurred to me then that my life could end at any moment. I had always wanted to sculpt and I decided in that moment that I would start then, before it was too late. I didn’t have a studio and so asked at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology if I could use a studio there to teach myself to sculpt. Because of 9/11, some resident artists had not come and a studio was available. In order to teach myself how to sculpt, I checked books out of the library and visited the Bronze Coast Gallery in Cannon Beach. I spoke with a wonderful man there named Rex, who explained things that still seemed mysterious to me after reading about them in a book.

The spirit I see embodied in people moves me.  I sculpt mostly women. I try to capture the natural strength, ease, vulnerability, and courage I see in women.  In my mind’s eye I see, and in my body I feel what it means to lead with the heart; to walk in faith; to break out of the box.
 
I make figurative sculpture out of clay. I use water clay, which I fire, and oil clay, which I mold to be cast in bronze. I work from about one third of life size to larger than life. I work realistically, though I use abstraction to emphasize what I see beyond the physical.

I am most proud of portraying the strength in women – how it feels to be a woman from the inside, rather than simply what it looks like from the outside.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I was in my late 40’s, my husband and I were having a tough time financially. My brother had started a newsletter business teaching people how to day-trade stocks. He offered me a job, working from home, editing the Right Line Split Report newsletter. He taught me how to turn on a computer, how to type, how to read charts, and how to analyze stocks to know when to buy and when to sell in order to make a lot of money. Using the charts of the stocks’ movement, the volume of people trading the stock, and the news, I learned to predict what a stock was likely to do in the short term. (here’s a hot tip: having a plan of when to buy and sell and following your plan are two wildly different things!) I worked for my brother, for 4 years. When my brother sold the business in 2000, I had saved enough money to put a down payment on a house and support myself for several years while I learned to sculpt.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

In my view, I believe that Art Colleges ought to offer courses in the business of art, in addition to the major field of art. I think that they ought to teach art students how to make money with their art and how to win public art projects. I think they should teach students how to run a business with their art while maintaining their artistic integrity.

I feel that is a major failing in art schools that they don’t, at least the ones I know about. I wish that art schools would teach artists how to thrive in the real world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jillperrytownsend.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jillperrytownsend/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jill.p.townsend

Image Credits

Photo of Jill Painting in Katwijk credit: Ingeloes Bense

All other photos credit: Jill Perry Townsend