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Jenny Doss

Artist's Interview

How long have you been creating?: I have been creating ever since I can remember. Apparently I liked to eat my crayons as a child because of the pretty colors they made when... wait, never mind.

What, besides your art, brings you creative fulfillment?: Words on a page. The perfection of random, everyday objects on a table. The absolutely sweet combination of a black tee, jeans, and red plaid shoes.

What are your motivations for creating?: Because life would be dull as hell without it! No, honestly... it's a switch that I can't turn off. And even if I could turn it off, I wouldn't do it --- not in a million years.

How do you know when a piece you have been working on is done?: I don't, not always. On commissioned pieces, it's especially hard, because I never seem satisfied. Only when the client says, "Please, don't change a thing!" will I stop. On everything else, I just go until it feels right. Sometimes that's pretty quickly - other times, it never happens.

What do you find stimulating right now? How does this influence your creative process?: Anything plaid... The combination of black and silver... Lots and lots of music... Strength of character... New experiences, new ways of seeing the world around me... Any museum... Bold colors... Intriguing textures... How can there be any limitation to this list? Everything is stimulating, from a particular blue-grey rain cloud hanging low in the sky, to viewing Edward Hopper's luminous paintings at the Chicago Art Institute this month, to the silhouette of a tree in twilight, to the curve of a bicep on a tanned arm, an angle of a jaw line, the muffled woofs my dogs make when they are sound asleep and dreaming, paws twitching... a flash of red and yellow on a blackbird's wing in flight, the way my dog's fur feels so electric under my fingers, the sound of rain on the roof... I could go on and on. All these things toss and whirl in my mind, make me want to create and shape and mold and draw something out of nothing.

What brought you to EBSQ?: I joined EBSQ when it first came about -- I saw this oddly-named art group, thought to myself, "hey that would be cool" -- emailed John Seed, and have been here ever since.

What are some of your artistic goals for the future?: GOAL: To carve out time to actually sit down, get messy and create. My non-art job has consumed me far too much lately.

What would you like your fellow EBSQ artists and collectors to know about you and or your work?: First of all - I love you guys!! Second - The greatest compliment I received was from a patron who told me -- "I look at your work and it makes me smile." If I can do that through my work, make people smile, well - what could be better than that?