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DI: What sort of art training and background have you received?

Jen: For as long as I remember I have been drawing in one form or another. While I was in high school, my art teacher selected me and a few others in my class to attend a college figure drawing course that he was teaching for the Community College. I attended about 3 semesters worth before graduating from high school where I applied and attended Edinboro University of PA. It was there that I received a BFA specializing in painting with a minor in Art History (focusing on ancient civilizations).

DI: After being exposed to so many different genres, styles, and mediums, which are your favorites?

Jen: ohhh...that's a tough one!

Each medium has their own 'personality' so it is difficult to choose just one! When I wish to complete a larger more 'environmental' painting, I would say that oils are my choice. Unfortunately I do not have one in my gallery to use as an example but I am planning on uploading my Mind Set series soon. When faced with a commissioned portrait, I always choose acrylics. I am more comfortable with this medium and feel I am able to capture the person better using this. For now when I want to play, I pull out the watercolors! They are so easy to use once you get the hang of them and so different when used on various surfaces!

DI: Your DA gallery is mostly female figurative. What is it about the women in your art that inspire you?

Jen: People ask me this all the time – why women? Why not more men?

This is very hard for me to answer, if the truth be told. I feel it stems from the duplicity of women. On the outside, you have soft curves, gentle smile, long flowing hair that you want to reach out and touch and the all too familiar glint in the eye that whispers of secrecy. While on the inside, you have cold, hard steel and a will that when pressed too far would move mountains. With men, there is more of the ‘what you see is what you get’. They embody strength at a glance (all hard lines and sharp edges of the ‘Protector’ figure). There is almost no mystery. Men are more fun to write about than draw in my opinion!

But I also like the sensuality of the female form. There are many places where you are able to evoke so many emotions: the soft hollow at the base of the throat, the gentle curve of the abdomen, the strength of the lower back…These to me are just a few of the reasons.

DI: One of the more curious models in your gallery is Maya whom you've mentioned as being a character in a book you're writing. Tell us more about her and the role she plays.

Jen: Maya (or Mai as I sometimes spell her name) haunts me. She was a character I developed in college and has remained with me since. Her history is filled with pain yet she is struggling to rise above this and ultimately find peace. There are parallels between us that I feel keeps the two of us tied together. To be brief, she was a simple girl who witnessed her family brutally murdered before her while she lay helpless. She herself was left for dead only to be ‘resurrected’. It was the feeling of utter helplessness that motivates her to seek out those that defiled her and slaughtered her family. It is a story of revenge and self-discovery. She is lost and seeking redemption amidst her sorrow. Images of her struggle are always surfacing in my mind and I often find words are not enough so I put them to paint.

DI: I'm sorry to hear about your family.

Jen: Oh not my family – they are all alive and well! I didn’t mean to insinuate that – our parallels are more internal and not external for our struggles. The parallels stem from a desperate feeling of helplessness where our lives were changed forever by one simple act that was devastating. I chose her history as a more violent representation with her family being massacred.

DI: At first Maya was painted in an abstract manner with drippy washes, emotionally vulnerable poses, encumbered and often times masculine muscular structure. In a more recent piece, she's lost weight, found some clothes - albeit not that many, and even had some ink done on her arm. What happened to trigger this evolution of Maya to Mia?

Jen: As for her change...I'm really not sure why I decided to give her a face. I suppose that would account for the change in the spelling of her name as an attempt to disassociate the two. At the time I completed her, I was also doing character studies for some friends to get over an artistic block. I suppose I got jealous and wanted to try something new! I really do not believe it is an accurate representation of her to be honest. The three others I have completed are truer to her.

DI: What sort of direction will you be taking Mai and the rest of your art in the future?

Jen: Well I hope to finish the Trilogy sometime very soon so that it can be published. Since I am writing it with a friend of mine it is only a matter of getting together and finishing it. The title at this point is still up in the air (that is why I simply refer to it as the Trilogy). I was hoping to complete some short stories with her in it and get those published in magazines kind of as teasers.

DI: I noticed you make sales through your website [link] . About how many sales do you make a month

Jen: My website is poor by many standards and is something that I intend to improve upon very soon! In the meantime, it gets the job done so there are no complaints. I just opened a print account here on DA and have begun selling prints of my work worldwide through them. As for personal sales through my site, since I do not have the MC/Visa or Paypal established yet, I receive contacts from clients via email and we negotiate the terms for commissions directly. I am in a ‘dry spell’ right now but on average I complete several commissioned works per month (anything from character studies to family portraits). Since my styles vary, it opens the door to many different projects that keep me very busy! This year I began an aggressive sales approach for both my writing and my art so expect to see more of me as I attend more art shows and seek publication!