1. How did you get your start in the handmade community?
After my mom took me to my first art show when I was 12, I knew I wanted in on the action. I went to school for painting and after graduation I got into the art show scene. My favorite part is meeting artists and makers from all over the world, I have met some amazingly talented people!
2. What do you feel makes your work unique and truly your own?
I've been creating paintings of honeybears for over seven years now. My first honeybear painting was a gift for my dad for inspiring me to be an artist and pushing me to go to art school. The honeybears represent the time in my life when my family would sit down for dinner and before we said the blessing the honeybear had to be on the table. Whatever bread we had for dinner, we would put honey on it and it would be dessert. When I first showed the honeybears at my first art festival I found out that other people had a connection with this silly little bear and kept on painting them!
3. What or Who Inspires you?
Some of my favorite painters who inspire me are Duane Keiser and Carol Marine - I got to take week long workshops from them and both workshops were incredible! I also love Janet Fish's work, her early work really made me fall in love with painting. 😍
4. What is your creative process like?
I paint in a lot of layers. I work on a lot of paintings at the same time - my favorite part is starting a painting. I work on each painting for an hour or so then let it dry and work on another while its drying. All my paintings start in acrylic, then I do a last layer of oil paint. There are paintings all over my studio and all over my house.
5. What is the coolest artistic tip you have ever received? So when I was just starting out I set up my art at this realty open house, I was set up in a house they were trying to sell. It was one of the first little shows I did after college and I don't think I sold anything. I had a mess of random paintings and I didn't know what I was doing or even what I was supposed to do. Another artist took a look at my paintings of honeybears, landscapes, portraits, and all these random foods I painted and told me that I needed to become "the honeybear lady" - that I could still paint whatever I wanted but to really push the honeybears and make it my thing. So for the next few years I really worked toward being that honeybear girl and its really helped people know who I am and get my paintings out there. Thats been the best tip I've ever received for sure!
6. What can we expect to see from you at Jackalope?
Honeybears! And other fun, colorful paintings of flowers, hot sauce, and whatever I decide to paint before the show! I will be driving out to Colorado for the summer in my airstream trailer, I will be coming from Asheville, North Carolina but my studio is in Birmingham, Alabama - so you can expect to see some paintings from my travels out west in my airstream named Norma Faye.
7. Where can we learn more about you?
I post a lot on my instagram page @jaynemorganart and facebook.com/jaynemorganart
You can also find more info on my website jaynemorgan.com and my etsy shop!