Livin' The Dream :)

As many of you already know, last weekend was my first time exhibiting at The Artist Project Toronto. It's an amazing show, and actually what inspired me two years ago to begin my own collection of personal work, so just getting accepted and being part of that felt like a big hug from the Universe. The experience itself was so great.. I met lots of lovely people, saw many friends both in the crowds that visited and in the booths around me, and had beautiful conversations. Someone cried in my booth (the second time that's happened), which I took to be the highest compliment. People asked me questions that ranged everywhere from "how do you do that?" to "where did you stay when you were in Nice?". People saw things in my images that I'd never noticed or thought of, which was inspiring.

And I basically got to spend 4 days surrounded by images and telling stories about art, photography, love, and the magic of chance. Because if you haven't had the chance to see this collection in person yet, I'll let you in on a little secret: it's about beauty, and colour, and texture, and layers, and all that good stuff. It's about the South of France, and Paris, and a trip that I took by myself just over 5 years ago. But for me, the collection represents something bigger..

The Absolute Magic of Chance.

What happens when you go as far as you can out on a limb, and then just jump. Without really knowing what you're jumping into, or what will happen, or if it's a good idea. But having a gut feeling that it's the right thing to do.

Because as well as taking about a million pictures in my 3 weeks in France, I also met a man. A handsome fellow with a great accent. He was from Belfast, and was in Nice to go scuba diving. We were staying at the same hostel, and met in line for dinner. That man is now my husband :) Those images have grown up to be my first collection of personal fine art pieces. That trip changed my life, and I could never have seen it coming.

So even when things are not working perfectly, or are much harder than I think they should be, deep down in my heart I feel so blessed at how things are turning out. At how the adventure of my life is unfolding. So if you see me in a booth full of images that look a bit like fairy tales, it's because that's how I feel about that trip. To see my work is to see how I feel about Love, Adventure, and Romance.

I hope that each and every one of you follows your dream - even if you don't know what it is yet :)

xo
Jessica

Getting ready for The Artist Project!

It's now less than 3 weeks away - my very first indoor show - so I'm busybusybusy finishing up some new pieces and designing my booth. This would be pretty exciting no matter what, but The Artist Project holds a bit of a special place in my heart and here's why..

Two years ago, my friend Carolyn and I heard about this art exhibition at the CNE called The Artist Project. We decided to meet up and spend an hour or two checking it out. We spent six hours there - eyes lit up and imaginations set on fire. We're both creative people, but at the time neither one of us would have dared to consider ourselves "artists". Since then, we've both set up studio spaces and started devoting time to explore creatively. To make pretty things for the sake of making pretty things.

One of the most touching moments in my life was at my first show (the Queen West Art Crawl), when Carolyn walked into my booth and started crying - because she was there when the seed was planted. When I realized that it was not only possible, but really important to me, to create and show (and hopefully sell!) personal work, it literally changed my life. Don't get me wrong - I love photographing weddings, and tiny babies, and kids being kids, and locally designed fashion, art, and craft - but all those things are other people's creations. And I wanted to make something that was just mine. To ask for advise and opinions and be able to completely ignore them if I wanted. To take the love and joy I have for colour and texture and line, and make it into something that someone else can love too. To take the thousands of images that I have from years of travelling, and turn them into pieces that capture the way it felt to be on those trips.

So - here we are - two years later. I applied for The Artist Project months ago, and held my breath. I feel so honoured and fortunate to have been selected to hang my work among a crowd of such talented artists. I feel excited. I feel terrified. And it's all awesome.

And to honour the occasion, I've been working on some new pieces - collections of sets of 3 small pieces that go together - which I'm totally in love with :) They are the cutest and most colourful pieces yet, and I predict that they'll be crowd pleasers. Each and every one of the "birch panel" pieces that I've made are one of a kind (because I hate how reproducible photography sometimes is), so if you love any of them be sure to grab them before they're gone!

 

Bonus: I have two pairs of tickets to The Artist Project show in Toronto February 21st-23rd - if you're interested, just mention this on facebook or twitter and be sure to tag me so that I know to enter you in the draw (here I am on facebook, and here's me on twitter) - like my facebook page and follow me on twitter to get 4 bonus entries!!

Thanks a million for all the support and hope to see you at the show!

xo Jessica

Recalculating...

So - the big news is that after 7 years of saying "someday",  I just moved into a new studio space :) The story behind the big news goes like this..

Lately, with the help of the awesome Selina Maitreya as a coach and guide, I have been taking some time to look at the big picture of my business and life and really being conscious about considering where I would like to go with both. Selina has been a consultant to photographers for something like 30 years, and I've been doing her program (The Photographers Path) for a number of months now. The point of it - which sounds deceptively simple - is to figure out or remember what it is you truly love to shoot, and then build your business on a much narrower niche than you probably have in the past so that you are shooting what you love. Since you're lucky enough to love what you do, you'll be passionate in your execution of the work and it will show in your fantastic portfolio and very happy clients. There's a certain amount of faith involved - a bit of an "if you build it, they will come" kind of mentality - but it's been one of the most amazing processes I've ever been through.

I believe in Fate. I met my husband in the South of France a few years ago when our separate vacations to Nice overlapped by a few days - if that's not Fate, I don't know what is. It gives you this dizzy auto-pilot sort of feeling, when you're just doing what you're doing even though it may seem totally crazy to those around you - because you "know" it's what you're meant to be doing. Well, my friends, this was similar.

Back in March there was a show called The Artist Project down at the CNE in Toronto. A couple of months before that, a fabulously talented artist named Tanya Kirouac hired me to photograph her new work for the show. I don't know if you've ever been at a small-scale commercial photo shoot, but it's really just the two or three of you working very closely together all day - and you talk. Tanya and I talked about Art. And we talked about her show coming up, which she very kindly gave me a ticket to. Seeds had been planted in my imagination, although I'm not sure I realized it yet.

About a week before the show I got an email from my lovely friend Carolyn. We hadn't seen each other in quite a while, and in her email she mentioned that she wanted to get back into painting and making art again - even though that might sound "crazy" - and I thought it would be perfect if we went to check out this show together. We went with the intention of spending a couple of hours, and before we knew it 6 hours had flown by. It was awesome. We had such a great time, and I felt like I was floating on a cloud of inspiration over the following days and weeks :) Those unknown seeds were starting to sprout...

The only problem was this: being an "artist" was REALLY far from my current business model (haha) and something I hadn't even really dared to dream about since high school. I struggled (and I think so did Norman) with trying to imagine such a huge shift in what I use my photography for.

A couple of weeks ago I had a meeting with another amazing artist to discuss cataloguing her portfolio. Christine Kim told me a quick story about the point when she realized she wanted to be doing her art full-time. She said "you know when you go off-course and the GPS lady says "recalculating"? That's what it felt like. I spent about a week recalculating." This was exactly it. I needed some time to get my head around how this would fit into my life. In marketing terms, it's "repositioning". No matter what you call it, it's the most terrifying and exhilarating point my business has ever been at.

One of the other artists I spoke to at the show was a photographer/painter named Suzanne Ernst, whom we had met at the One of a Kind show a few months earlier. I was talking to her about the experience of doing shows, and she told me that applications for the Queen West Art Crawl in September were due at the end of the month. "Just apply" was what she said, and something in the simplicity of how she said it made it seem easy. So I did. Haven't heard back yet, so we'll see what happens.. {*update!* I've been accepted into the show, so now I'm in a state of blissful urgency getting ready for it!}

All this is sort of to explain what I've been going through in my head over the past months. And also to explain why I'm a photographer who just moved into a studio space that isn't really a shooting space. It's  a making space. I plan to be making beautiful pieces there, though I don't quite know what they'll look like yet!

When I look back at goals that I've set personally and for my business over the past few years, TRAVEL is the biggest consistent. I thought (and still think) "isn't it great that I have a job that allows me time to travel?" Now I'm starting to think - what if all the amazing experiences and things that I love about travelling could be made into works of art that would be a "real world" version of what it feels like inside my heart to be in these places and see these things?? I think it just might be awesome :)

Will I still be shooting commercial work? YES - only now I've really narrowed down who I want to work with. The people who have always been my favourite commercial clients: the Makers. Fashion designers. Jewellers. Ceramic artists. Glass artists. Painters. Multi-media artists. Interior designers. I love working with the awesome clients I currently have (here are some of them), and I love meeting and chatting with potential new clients.

Will I still be shooting weddings and babies? YES - I love LOVE. I love the emotions, the moments, and the beautiful details of these amazing parts of people's lives. I love building these relationships until I'm practically part of the family. I love designing gorgeous albums for my couples. I'm really looking forward to doing more of the awesome custom collages we just started offering.

Sheep, Northern Ireland

So what's going to change? Those thousands (and I'm not exaggerating!) of images I have stored on various hard drives in folders called "personal", all my travel images and other stuff that I shoot for pure joy, will finally see the light of day :) Norman has been gently pushing for two years now for me to print up and show my pictures of Northern Ireland, and I also have some beautiful images from Mexico, Paris, the south of France, Amsterdam, and Spain. This fall we are going to Japan, which is a trip I've been dreaming about for over a decade (!) and I can't wait to see the images that come from it :)

Palais-Royale, Paris (Man Sitting)

Also, I'll be the happiest me I can be :) Right now I've got that feeling of knowing exactly what I'm supposed to be doing, and it's this awesome glowy giddy feeling..

Yellow Wall, Mexico

Thanks so much to everyone mentioned for all the guidance, inspiration, and chats. Thanks to Erin Tracy, Jenny Greco, Melanie LeBlanc, Dawn Pearcey especially for YEARS worth of "figuring it all out" conversations during shoots and over tea :) Thanks always to my Mommies, who have shown by example that there are no impossible dreams :) And the biggest thanks to my Lovely Husband, Norman, for supporting what he doesn't always agree with, and for trying so hard to understand the way I see the world. It means everything to me :)

Locks, South of France

I'll keep you posted on my progress ;)

xo
Jessica

{p.s. - do me a huge favour and please scroll back up to the top of this page and click on the "love it" heart at the top right - thanks so much! And if you don't already, follow us on facebook and twitter!}

Tanya Kirouac at The Artist Project show in Toronto March 1-4

February is normally a very slow time of year for us, but this year seems to have been non-stop! I've already had the good fortune to work with three amazing new clients - all very talented and inspiring women - one of whom will be exhibiting at The Artist Project show this weekend at the Queen Elizabeth Building at Exhibition Place. Tanya Kirouac is an amazing artist :) Over the years, she has built her technique of using encaustic wax painting to incorporate many layers (both physical layers and layers of meaning) into her pieces. I spent a day and a half staring at her work, and still kept finding new things! I loved talking to her about art and her process while we were shooting her work.. I think it's really awesome when you find out that the reason she's got so much bird imagery in her pieces is that she's enamoured with all the birds she's seen on her property in Prince Edward County. And that the pieces of sheet music embedded in her designs are chosen specifically because the songs are about gardens and flowers (as well as being visually lovely). I LOVE that kind of stuff - the added depth that a painting takes on as you speak to it's creator and learn where it all came from :)
If you're in Toronto this weekend you should definitely stop by the show to check out Tanya's work in real life. You may just find (like I did) that you need to bring one of these beautiful little gardens home with you!

Here's a sneak peek:

up close you can see the amazing detail and all the layers... 

(this one is mine now - so you'll have to come to my place to see it!)

If you can't make it to the show, be sure to visit Tanya in her studio space in the Distillery District!

And if you also happen to be a visual artist and would like your work shot for your portfolio, please email me now for more information :)