The two of us as fine artists each separately have pieces in this (museum curator curated) juried 7th Annual Fine Art Group Show at a local Fine Art Gallery. For a couple of the pieces of this particular fine art it’s our first time having it displayed in a fine art juried group show at a gallery. For a couple of Jenny’s other pieces this is their first time in a juried group show in the Midwest as she'd previously had them in a Solo Show & also a group show out in Santa Barbara, California in the past 7.5 years. Jennifer has had her 3D fine art bodies of work displayed in juried fine art solo and group shows for 12 years within galleries in 4 states of the United States. Jason has had his separate 2D fine art shown in juried group shows out in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and the Midwest over the past 10 years.
The juried group show at the gallery this year is titled “Vernal Reawakening.” The prompt was as follows:
"As time passes and life seems to emerge from a cold darkness, there is a sense of hope. A metamorphic time of rejuvenation, reinvention, & reimagination, Spring returns. What is your vision for a new Spring season? Fantasy or reality, it is a time of rebirth and revitalization."
This juried fine art group show is the 7th Annual 3-D show (which hadn't been held in recent years due to Pandemic concerns). Accepted 3D Fine Art for this show included ceramics, stone, metal, glass, wood, fiber, resin, etc. Each artist submitted one or two pieces and selected works were on display in the fine art gallery for just under 2 months in 2023.
The Opening reception took place on the First Friday on April 7th and there was another awards ceremony held at May’s First Friday on May 5th. In our blog post coming up next week we’ll be sharing more of at least 4 to 6 other past fine art openings of solo and group shows that we’ve been included in, but for now enjoy this look at this South Bend group juried fine art show (as photographed by us) and feel free to check out more about us as Fine Artists at the bottom of this weekly blog post-!
Jason’s Fine Artist Story (in his own words)
Jason always enjoyed making art as a young child. Starting at an early age, he enjoyed creating crude and somewhat laughable drawings, which his family seemed to enjoy way beyond the actual quality of the images. One particular drawing of his grandfather is notable for his family’s sentimentality of the piece. At the age of 8 he took a drawing class at a community center in which the instructor taught the students only how to draw a clown’s face in profile. Jason would carry the poor techniques learned in this class forward in life, always drawing figures poorly from a profile angle.
Skip forward several years. At the age of 12 Jason purchased a decent quality SLR Minolta camera from Best Buy. He didn’t know much about photography or cameras at this point and just purchased something with an interchangeable lens and no ability to adjust exposure settings. Through this camera however, he did learn the basics of composition and how to work with 35mm film. A few years later he would upgrade his equipment to something more substantial that allowed for basic settings of shutter speed and aperture, allowing him to experiment and try different techniques more readily. At about the same time he began taking courses on graphic design, digital photography, and photoshop compositing. He then upgraded to a digital camera to begin what would become a lifelong obsession with digital photography and digital manipulations.
As life progressed Jason has also worked with other mediums to create his fine art. He has worked with alternative process photography, polymer clay, acrylic and oil paint, and studio glass.
Jennifer’s Fine Artist Story (In her own words)
When I was 5 years old a teacher at school in 1st grade asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up while my parents were present. I immediately knew my answer to their question and exclaimed “an Art Teacher-!!” To my dismay my mom laughed hysterically and flatly responded with “hahaha No.” I felt frustrated, but as much as I deeply loved and obsessed over making art, I also loved fiction writing, dark humor, poetry, science, math, nature, music, gym class, and more, so I didn’t sweat it. I was sad at the lack of moral support, but smirked and walked away knowing that I’d go on to make more than the rudimentary ceramics, drawings, wood art (think nails hammered into boards), paintings, collages, and “glue art” (invented by true savant classmate/ preschooler). Hell, I’d already commandeered my wardrobe in preschool (much to the chagrin of my mom), beaten the boys in preschool at everything they’d said I as a girl couldn’t do, slayed my dance classes leading the 20 other students in teaching the correct moves, and met a ton of strangers in tennis and my Girl Scout Brownies club, so I could probably make it happen with or without moral support. I built my walls back up and got back to the tasks at hand.
From the age of 3 onward I took as many art classes that I could get my hands on. I perfected my artistic skills in fabrics, painting, ceramics, woodworking, fine art glass working, film photography, drawing, alternative photographic processes, paper mache, digital 3D renderings at university, and more. Fast-forward 24 years to my 1st ever solo show in April 2011 (less than 2 years after my university graduation with 2 degrees and the subsequent solo move 1.5 hours up to the capitol of Ohio). At that point I was living in the capitol of Ohio in my one-bedroom apartment in the Victorian Village touching The Short North where fine art galleries abounded. I managed to have 5 juried group and non-juried solo shows in 3 Midwest states. That Spring I helped a business owner build some props and also walked the runway at a major Fashion Show in Columbus, Ohio. A year later I took the GRE, got 3 amazing university professor letters of recommendation, and got into an MFA program out in Santa Barbara, California. I finished my courses in 2014, earned my degree, had articles written about my Solo Gallery Show in two Santa Barbara newspapers in 2015, and the rest is history.
Coming up Next week
Can you believe that we’re back to blogging every single week (and have done so for the past 4 weeks of May 2023)…? We can’t either considering the fact that we’ve been photographing Corporate Portraiture, Engagement Sessions, and Family Portrait Sessions literally weekly for the past 5 weeks and prior to that were in Southern California & Sedona, Arizona for nearly 3 weeks. Coming up next week on the blog we’ll be sharing images captured at 4 to 6 other juried fine art gallery shows that we’ve gotten to participate in from Santa Barbara to Columbus, Ohio to Southwest Michigan to Chicago to here in South Bend, Indiana-!
Don’t you worry, though. We’ve also still been photographing full 7 to 11 hour wedding days in Chicago, Southwest Michigan, South Bend, Ohio, and elsewhere in Indiana as usual. We’ve also been photographing weddings abroad since over 11 years ago when Jenny photographed her first well-paying Destination Wedding on an island in the Caribbean Sea in Spring 2012. As usual we’ll be uploading some Teasers of Southwest Michigan weddings that we’ve photographed this Summer here on our blog later this 2023 Summer, but for now we have quite a few other things to share with you.