For many artists, the act of creating is an opportunity to express themselves in ways they may not otherwise in their day-to-day. Along the way, they may tap into latent personality traits that were just waiting to be set free. And when they do, that’s often when the magic happens.
For Jessamyn Parker, a self-described playful, yet shy kid, abstract art became a way for her to break from the self-imposed boundaries and limitations. Though she had been painting and drawing most of her life, when she started to explore abstract art, it was like she was set free.
“I feel like I can come into my studio and let go of some structure,” Jessamyn said. “I found a way to communicate and express without so many boundaries or limitations that I had set before.”
Now, Jessamyn allows intuition to guide her work. She watches how the marks on the piece communicate with one another and how they work together to communicate as a cohesive whole. Sometimes the result is turbulent or energetic, but there’s always a sense of balance and peace.
In this interview, Jessamyn shares how she found her way back to art after exploring another career, how she excavated her artistic voice and how her work is continuing to evolve.
Q&A with Jessamyn Parker
When did your interest in art begin?
Definitely from childhood. I was a theatrical kid. I liked to perform for the family. I’d put on my leotard and we’d make up plays. There were seven kids in our family, so we were all kinds of silly and fun––really a creative group. With art, I was always drawing and doodling. I just had a natural inclination to it. All of my high school binders were covered in drawings.
In college, I did about three years as an art major initially at the University of Reno. It was a really conceptual art department and felt really intimidating to me during critique. Though I was always this playful, theatrical kid, I was also kind of a shy kid. So critiques were really hard for me. I also really loved French, and my mom urged me to do whatever I wanted to do. So I ended up doing both [art and French], but majoring in French literature.
When did you realize art was your path?
As I went through college, I also ran track for UNLV (the University of Nevada Las Vegas). I raced throughout my 20s and fell into a fitness job doing personal training. I never stopped drawing and doing all of that, but I just didn’t make it my career.
About six or seven years ago, I had a friend who I grew up with who was also a runner and an athlete. She is also an artist and she had found a way to make a living at it, and she suggested I start painting again. Though I was still creating pieces, I was hesitant. But I started to do shows and it just kind of took off from there.
How did you find your unique abstract style?
When I first started painting again, I really had a little identity crisis. I questioned what I was about, and I took a year or two of just picking things like birds or bees, things that I cared about in the environment or a portrait of my brother’s dog, just to get back in and see. I started to find that I was more interested in the process of painting than the finished, realistic thing that I had set out to paint. So, I started to explore more abstract styles and I found freedom in that.
I feel like I can come into my studio and let go of some structure that I had a lot of as I was growing up and through my early adulthood. I found a way to communicate and express without so many boundaries or limitations that maybe I had set before. I just found it really interesting to be able to have so many different interpretations of something.
What do you find most rewarding about your work?
I think it’s that sense of freedom. It’s also a way to feel like you can communicate and be seen or heard. There are little pieces within the painting that do that with each other so I can communicate with my painting. And then there’s little communications happening within the painting, so I watch this dialogue that comes along and make adjustments so the most important pieces come through and maybe I filter out some of the other stuff that’s chatty.
I think it’s really rewarding to be able to get clear on your point or on your feeling that you’re coming to. Although it may not be planned, because I work more intuitively, you know it when it’s finished––when you have that peaceful moment and feel like you arrived at where you were going. Arriving at that moment of clarity where everything has come together and this is what I meant.
What is the most challenging?
I think the most challenging is to not bring in my disciplined, organized, structured background. Part of that is good. But as far as my paintings go, the biggest challenge is to let go of that at times and just let that freedom come out––to find the flow that I can get into where it’s intuitive, because if you think too much and you organize too much, that kind of leaves the room.
How has your work evolved?
Sometimes I wish I had started sooner because I feel like I’m making up for lost time and I want to explore everything. I’ll paint these paintings for a week and I’m loving them, and then I get another idea, so I’ll explore that. In the beginning though, just making marks was really exciting, so I started out really minimal, which I still love going back to. But now, I also feel like I can make much more turbulent or exciting or loud paintings, and they don’t feel overwhelming. They feel equally beautiful. It’s always a winding road for me––just always moving.
What drew you to the Celebration of Fine Art?
Andrew [Bolam] my partner introduced me to it. But I also wanted to be around my people. I think you can really learn from each other. That sense of community can give your work better energy, and again, to be in their daily and doing it with everyone, it sounded really exciting.
