ARTIST STATEMENT
It has taken a lifetime for me to turn around, acknowledge, and say ‘hi’ to the artist in me. I put her away long ago when my worry and doubts about ‘making a living’ as an artist became all that I could hear. Thankfully I trusted my creativity which held and carried me through a rich career in education, advocacy, social work and equity. I am always holding a creative practice, fostering associative pathways to brilliant connections with people, ideas and communities. Now in what is considered my third act, I marvel at the wildy and numerous ways my creative heart expands and embraces art-ing–painting, photography, personal narrative, cooking, sewing, crafting and gardening. I navigate my multifaceted identity with a deep sense of exploration and self-discovery. One of my first adult jobs was mixing colors for a master printmaker, may his memory be for a blessing. It was a most fulfilling and visceral job; not becoming a master printmaker myself is one of my deepest regrets. Right now with so much struggle in the world, the losses and harms mounting from climate change and the finding of my complicities in the degradation of humanity, I grapple with
if it is enough to just make beautiful art. Does art that quenches my longing to connect through and with beauty, help others?. Is what I do self-indulgent? What can I create that reveals something new and helpful to the world? This is what I am grappling with in my work right now.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
I have been an educator, school social worker and family advocate for thirty years, so my official ‘bio’–like where I went to school, my degrees and my areas of study seem far away and irrelevant to where I want to be heading these days. I have few if any art credentials at this point. I’m excited, in time, to watch that change and grow. I’ve recently retired from the educational system and as I mentioned in my statement, I have finally taken my artist self in my arms and am taking her seriously. Who is she? What will she
say? Will it matter? My heritage as a white cishet female and a Jew of Color, with Greek and Sephardic roots, woven into my experiences as someone born in Germany and raised in Chicago, undergirds my creative practice. I have lived in Chicago most of my life, raised a family here and live with my partner. I’m longing for and working to create a working space and practice of my own. I am thankful for a community of friends and artists who have been and are my inspiration and light.
© Jena Doolas