Imagine:
The morning light pokes you awake. Crisp, optimistic, sunbeams fill the room. You don’t toss or hit ‘snooze’. You don’t mire in the battles already mapped out for your day; the stench of dread only exists as a fading memory. You jump up, excited—no, elated—to experience another waking session of doing what you love most.
Great dream, right? Well—with focused work, intention, and a little bit of luck—it doesn’t need to be that.
Today, Border 2 Border member and group artist, Jeremy Allen Rheault (or simply “Ro”) of The Art Jar, shared a bit of his journey from working as a High School art teacher to eventually getting to spend his days both socializing and regularly producing art pieces that bring immense joy into people’s community spaces and homes.
The main feature of Jeremy’s presentation today was a 7 year old short-form documentary that interviewed him—then a local educator—on the front end of doing a “series” of cardboard-based portraits. That series was indeed a series—but it was also the start of a years-long journey we know as The Art Jar today.
Our largest takeaway from the presentation, and the point that Jeremy really wanted to drive is that art skill isn’t so much innate as it is something that anyone can learn the core principles to, develop their ability at, and hone their craft doing. Like with anything, getting better is achievable but takes learning, focus, and repetitions.
While anyone can create projects with appeal and meaning for others to enjoy—some can do this much better than others and it’s only a small share that get to make it their sustaining profession.
Whatever your field—or whatever it is you love doing (they don’t have to be the same thing)—expertise is a genuinely worthy mountain to look up to, and maybe climb. Everyone who climbed it ahead of you still needed to take that first step up the mountain, and it’s never too late to start.
If you’d like to start with some art classes, you can connect with Ro via social media or contact information at his website. To hear or potentially deliver more great presentations like Jeremy’s, visit one of our meetings any time, and consider joining to become a member!
