We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jordan Wiebe a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jordan , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I began my painting practice in earnest at the start of the pandemic. My partner and I had moved to the Twin Cities the summer prior and I spent those 8-9 months canvassing the metro with my resume, trying to make connections with people that would lead to work. At home in Central California prior to the move, I was a marketing & creative director for a pro soccer club. When we landed in Minneapolis, I applied for 95+ positions and received 3 interviews and didn’t get any of those jobs. It felt like banging my head against the wall over and over again and opened up very visceral emotions inside of me around self-worth, personal capabilities and how those related to this economic no man’s land I found myself in. So, I started to paint about the experience.

I’ve always had a creative autodidactic streak, teaching myself musical instruments and photography as a child, graphic design and public art as an adult and had always wanted to paint. Once I began devoting the hours, it felt like I had come home, that the process of painting could hold the levels of self-expression I needed to get out of my body and brain. There’s something mystical about that process that feels endless, like I’ll never find resolve, always a new idea to explore, and that’s what keeps me coming back.

I started the practice exactly when I was meant to. Any earlier and the perfectionism & productivity police inside my head would have blocked any progress or growth and, most likely, I would have quit. If I had started later, I can certainly imagine a practice in which I’d be playing catch-up, making less quality work more frequently, to make up for lost time. That’s never a good position to be in because it significantly hinders the conversation I should be having with the canvas. That conversation is never rushed.

So, I’m glad I started when and where I did with what I had and trusted myself to allow the next steps in the process to emerge organically.

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

My name is Jordan Wiebe and I’m a self-taught multidisciplinary artist, with a focus on painting & photography, currently based in Oakland. I was raised in a Mennonite community in California’s San Joaquin Valley and, growing up, I didn’t realize making art as a living was even an option, as there were no models for it and Mennonites historically have had a fraught relationship with image-making.

I began my practice full-time in the spring of 2020 while living in Minneapolis and have been making paintings since. My paintings have been exhibited in a range of galleries in Minnesota and California and worked with businesses across the country, delivering mural projects and commissions.

I’m primarily interested in making work that follows where the unconscious is going, that comes from some combination of the heart and intuition and captures the ideas that emerge in their fullness. I have a playful approach and informal style with themes of subversion, mischief, humor often present and explore new ways of organizing symbols to build new language for familiar concepts.

You can follow the journey by subscribing to my monthly newsletter The Correspondence (link), a space that documents my art practice and invites folks to slow down, tap into the emotional responses to my work, to look, feel and linger a bit.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I don’t have much of a significant audience on social media and I struggle with the question of whether or not that’s even an objective in my practice. The ridiculous pace and hyper-saturation of images, videos and visual language that are the bedrock of social media are antithetical to what I’m aiming at: slowing down, taking time, feeling deeply, expressing the ideas that come up with my work.

I can certainly understand the positives of social media, greater visibility, opportunities for connection, etc. for artists but, on a social use level, it’s a tool that we haven’t quite mastered or understand fully yet. So for me, I engage but with a healthy dose of cynicism and an awareness that it’s not the measuring stick for success.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The immensely gratifying feeling when a painting or mural resolves and finds the spot where it’s asking to land. My job is to listen throughout the process and to engage in a dialogue with the work, this back-and-forth conversation rooted in mutuality, care and respect. That’s when I find flow and, for me, there’s no other feeling quite like it in the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jordanwiebe.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanweeb/

Image Credits
Jordan Wiebe