Check out Jenessa Goodman’s Artwork

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenessa Goodman.

Jenessa, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I was born in San Diego and raised here and in New Mexico, but have spent many years living and traveling in a wide variety of locales. I’m a gatherer of images and shapes, colors and textures from around the world. I take inspiration from nature, and find images in dreams and archetypal mythology. For me creating art is making an offering to something larger than myself, an offering to collective human experience or a homage to the mystical and spiritual aspects of everyday life.

Growing up, the only thing I ever wanted to be was an artist. I attended The School of The Art Institute of Chicago and received my BFA from The San Francisco Art Institute. After that I went to The School of Hard Knocks in New York City for a number of years. I worked in the photo industry as a prop stylist and spent time refining my aesthetic skills. Eventually, I moved back to Encinitas when my kids were very young. New York City is wonderful, but I wanted my children to live the kind of beachy life we are so privileged to have here in coastal San Diego.

After years of focusing on making art, I wanted to give back to the community more directly. I founded The Peace Poster Project, which is a fundraising effort for charitable causes. I also began to teach adult art classes that centered around exploring creative processes and personal growth. I developed a curriculum based on the way I used art to overcome difficult life experiences. Teaching these classes and watching my students find deeper levels of authenticity and healing through art was amazing. In fact, the classes started to feel a lot like an art therapy group! My mentor suggested that I go back to school to become an actual therapist. Two months later I began a Master’s of Counseling Psychology program at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Pacifica is a school that specializes in Jungian depth psychology. Being a counselor in the depth tradition and making art feel like two sides of the same coin for me. I will graduate in May of 2019, and until then I am working as a Marriage and Family Therapist trainee for a non-profit organization. We provide art and play-based therapy to children at schools in low-income neighborhoods. Additionally, I am working toward certification in Dream Tending, a wonderfully creative method of working with dreams that was developed by Dr. Stephen Aisenstat.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
As far as my studio art goes, I primarily use ink and gouache on large pieces of watercolor paper. Gouache has a seductive purity of pigment, and the precision of ink balances bold colors. Nature is an endless source of inspiration to me, as are the concepts of micro and macro as they relate to human consciousness. Most of my paintings are fairly large – up to eight feet by ten feet. I use art and creativity to work through the kinds of big life issues we all face, transforming challenges into images of elegance and beauty.

In my work as a teacher and a counselor, I support others in this process directly through art-making, somatic exercises, dream work, or simply learning to be a more creative and flexible thinker. I believe that everyone is creative in some way. Cultivating creativity in our lives is essential to achieving long-term success and happiness! When creativity is recognized and used in business, education, government, and interpersonal relationships, it positively affects productivity, innovation, achievement, and satisfaction.

Do current events, local or global, affect your work and what you are focused on?
Artists have a social responsibility to process what is going on in the world around us and reflect it back through art. That art may be personal or political, but it is essential to our culture that we honor this process and create space for art in our communities. Artists are visionaries who can shift our perspectives and reveal new ways of understanding the world.

Local, national and international events affect my work because they affect me. My own artwork may not be political per se, but it reflects who I am and what I believe in. It is crucial that we all – artists or otherwise – learn how to speak up and let our diverse voices be heard. I created The Peace Poster Project, my charity fundraising effort, as a way to engage more directly with national and international causes that I believe in.

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I’ve been focusing on finishing up graduate school rather than showing artwork lately, but my website, jenessagoodman.com and my @jenessagoodman Instagram account have a lot of photos of my work. I am always making new art! Currently, I offer creative Dream Tending sessions to clients, and expect to begin private practice as a therapist next year. The Peace Poster Project, my fundraising effort, is a great way to support good causes and collect affordable original art as well. You can see the Peace Posters on Instagram @peace_poster_project or on the Peace Poster Project website, peaceposterproject.com

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.jenessagoodman.com
• Email: j@jenessagoodman.com
• Instagram: @jenessagoodman
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jegcreativetherapy/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/JGoodmanArt
• Other: http://www.peaceposterproject.com

Image Credit:
LUX_Pano2_girls.jpg by John Durant at Lux Art Institute
IMG_6784.JPG at Dutch boutique

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