We caught up with the brilliant and insightful John Jurries a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, John thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
My most meaningful project I’ve worked on is my on-going “Monster of the Day” project where I draw and paint a new friendly and whimsical creature every single day. I started this on January 1, 2014 as a month-long project to help jump start my creativity – at that point I felt like I was in a creative rut and I was rarely drawing or painting, so I thought committing to drawing every day for a month would help get me back on track. As with many New Year’s resolutions, I figured this would probably fall off after a couple of weeks, but what I found instead was that I was having a lot of fun, so much so that I decided to extend the project to a 100 day challenge. By the time I reached the 100th day I was fully hooked, so the project expanded into a full year, and then two, then five, then ten, and now I’ve just started my twelfth year of daily painting, and I’m honestly having more fun than ever! Not only have I learned a lot about myself and grown as an artist, but it’s allowed me to connect with a whole community of amazing artists and fans along the way.
I’ve also learned a lot about the power of continuing to show up – there have been plenty of days along the way where I bump up against creative blocks and the ideas just aren’t coming, but almost always just on the other side of that I’ll end up drawing a piece I’m really proud of. Many of my favorite paintings ever followed a rough day, and I’m continually grateful that ‘yesterday me’ didn’t give up when things were hard so ‘today me’ could keep creating!
John, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’m a painter and illustrator with a deep love for creative creatures of all varieties. My work involves playful, whimsical and imaginative monsters, the kind you’d actually want to find under your bed! I work primarily with ink and watercolor. I’ve played with other mediums here and there, but I fell in love with watercolor pencils along the way and never looked back – I love the vivid color they bring to my paintings! I’ve also recently started painting murals and I’ve been having a lot of fun with that – my daily paintings are on the small side, so it’s really fun to play in an entirely different scale!
I started attending local art fairs and markets shortly after starting my Monster of the Day project, and it was a great way to grow my audience and build my business. For the first several years I only did a handful of shows every year, slowly learning and gaining confidence until I had a regular lineup of roughly ten shows a year I frequented. I daydreamed about going full-time, but I never really imagined I could actually make a living from doing this. Then the pandemic hit and all my shows were cancelled for the entire year – when applications started opening up again the following year I took a chance and applied to as many as possible, hoping at least a few would say yes and I could expand my reach. To my surprise I got accepted into every single show I applied for, and now I’m regularly booked almost every weekend for all of summer. I love getting to travel all over Michigan and meet so many amazing people – I’ve also started to build community of regulars at each show, it’s so fun to have friendly and familiar faces at each market I do!
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
There’s a lot of rewarding aspects – first and foremost is that I genuinely love the creative process. I love starting each day with a blank sheet of paper and ending with a fully formed character. I love all the little creative decisions and problem solving that goes into it and watching the piece take shape and come to life – it’s truly something I’d want to keep doing even if I was deserted on a remote island and had no way of sharing it with other people.
On the other hand, I absolutely love interacting with people at shows! Art can be a pretty solitary process, and getting to go out and see people’s reactions to my art in person is always so much fun! I’ve heard so many kind, supportive and funny comments about my work over the years, it’s endlessly rewarding to see the joy it brings to other people.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
There’s a lot of clichés about the tortured, suffering artist, and while there’s certainly can be a degree of that comes with any creative endeavor I also think it’s important that people know that you don’t have to suffer to make art. Joy can be the engine. Fun can be the engine. I think play is a vastly overlooked element of the creative life, and if drawing and sharing my work can help others see and appreciate that than that feels like a worthwhile mission.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.johnjurries.com
- Instagram: @johnjurriesart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtofJohnJurries
