We recently connected with Lettie Jane Rennekamp and have shared our conversation below.

Lettie Jane, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

It took me a long, long time to take myself seriously as an artist.

I was obsessed with drawing from a young age and was supported at home and encouraged to draw. I won a Young Author’s award in first grade for my illustrations and took art classes outside of school. I went to art school for college. I pursued art because I loved to draw and I was weird. I figured I was putting off getting a job or making a living. I worked in restaurants and made art when people asked me to. Art school did not convince me I could make a living as an artist, I learned making art as a living was hard work. Art school did convince me that there were a million ways to approach an art practice, from walking to painting, from video to printmaking, and I figured I could just live and make art and make money in other ways. Sometimes I felt ambitious about art and wanted to have gallery shows or have my work seen or respected by artists I liked, but mostly I was scared of putting myself out there too much and didn’t mind working in kitchens.

I had a kid 9 years ago and I realized after having him that if I didn’t work very hard to make art, I would never make art again. I had no time, and so the time I did have I made things as quickly as possible and documented them and put them out there without thinking about it too much, because I was thinking about feeding my kid, or picking up my house. I began to value my time in a new way, and also to look for more financial security. Previously I had thought of many many careers I could do, but I had reasons not to do all of them. I had an art degree, I had years of experience making art, sometimes people paid me for it, and I actually liked doing it. What if I took this path seriously?

In the desperation of having a one and half year old child and believing I was never again going to be the person I was before I consulted an Intuitive healer who gave me the piece of advice that set me on the path to taking my art practice more seriously: talk to the most successful person you know in the field and find out how they got there and what advice they would give you. This was the tipping point and over the next several years I dropped my hours at the restaurant and picked up my art teaching and making hours and developed the practice I have today.

Lettie Jane, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Lettie Jane Rennekamp. I live in Portland, OR.

My work often centers on the body and what it means to inhabit a body in this world. I use illustrations depicting people, plants and pattern to try to capture more abstract ideas like moving through grief or self acceptance. I am always trying to reflect on my connection to the world around me and drawing helps me manage. I use a variety of materials in my work. I usually work analog with pens, colored pencils or watercolor and scan drawings to bring them to life digitally. I find joy in both the reverence for art materials and disregarding any preciousness about their use.

I’ve struggled my whole life with whether or not I’m an artist, despite earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2005 from The San Francisco Art Institute. I attended Rhode Island School of Design 2000-2001 and have continued my art education at PNCA and Portland Community College taking illustration and ceramics courses. I think I’ve finally accepted that if I spend a huge chunk of my life dedicated to art, it means I’m an artist.

I use she/her or they/them pronouns, I identify as cis-female, but love a wider spectrum of pronoun usage. I am a white and come from a middle class background. I identify as queer and bisexual inside a myriad of heteronormative relationships.

Coffee is my favorite beverage, I grew up on a horse farm and I love the ocean. I’m a mom and my son, Nicky was born in 2014. I’m an Aquarius, a weirdo, a horse-girl. I’m anxious and dyslexic. I’m a witch and I’ve spent more than a decade in therapy. I love nature and friendship and joy.

I teach art at Ulna Art Studio, a brightly lit space in an old warehouse in the central eastside of Portland. I love helping students honor and hone their artistic voice and seeing teaching as an integral part of my own art practice.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I am in the ever-expanding process of unlearning something I picked up in childhood: that art is trivial, a cute hobby, and bourgeois. I believe art can help people through tough times, both in it’s creation and in seeing it, having it on your walls, or interacting with it in the world.

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

I believe a thriving creative ecosystem makes cities desirable to live in. Creative work needs to be valued and supported in order to made. There are pockets of culture that value art, but frequently feel elitist and support only a small community of creatives. Support should begin with sustainable, low cost studio spaces or housing for artists. There needs to be cultural and financial support of creative work, grants for public works, and livable wages for artists.

I live in Portland, Oregon where many of the public art opportunities for artists are well compensated, but those opportunities are competitive. The rise in rent and cost of living here means that it is increasingly challenging to make creative work, which inevitably involves mistakes, wrong turns and experimentation. When your rent takes more than half of your income, you don’t have room or time for experimentation.

Portland is a good example of a city where art has been celebrated, because we have a thriving art scene, there are many galleries and coffee shops have great art shows. However, if you are a gallery represented artist, making a living here is a challenge, there is more money in LA or New York. The cost of living here means that many young artists can’t survive and for folks like myself, who make a living from a variety of creative avenues (teaching, murals, illustration) there is an imperative to never stop working.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lettiejane.com
• Instagram: @lettiejanemakes
• Other: https://lettiejane.substack.com/

Image Credits
My bio picture is by Anne Parmeter and Zim Zimmerman.