Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessica Tehan.
Hi Jessica, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
For as long as I can recall I have felt the desire to create. I grew up in a home with a creatively focused father. He took his art seriously and with a level of high perfectionism. At 15 he told me to stop drawing with a pencil to eliminate the need for an eraser. I have been drawing with a pen ever since. My art was always very personal and private from the teenage years on. I did not go out of my way to share or show my art to anyone. My friends and people closest to me who knew about the art were always very encouraging and slowly I began to relax around the idea of sharing the art with others.
At 24 I became a mother. At that time I found myself obsessed with the idea of keeping an active sketchbook like a journal or diary. On the nights when my baby would go to bed early (which were scarce) I would sit up until sometimes 2 am drawing and writing in my sketchbook. The more I kept to the daily practice of art the more loose I became with subject matter. Prior to that time I had always tried to conceptualize my compositions, often frustrating myself at the lack of perfected anatomy. Using art as a daily means to journal broke me out of that mindset. I began to sit with my ink and thoughts and allow the free flow of ‘stream of consciousness’ to exist.
Writing in tandem with drawing somehow personalized the work in a way where I was getting to know myself better as an artist. I realized it was less about creating something I thought I wanted to ‘see’ and more about giving myself the time and opportunity to create whatever came extemporaneously. In essence, I began to give shape to the way I felt. When there is no longer any pressure to rise to an expected standard, creatively speaking, the freedom to make way for surrealism to exist begins. I see my work as a blend of figurative surrealism that often defines the mood I am in. Life is a juxtaposition of so much noise and unintentional influence, retaining sensitivity can be challenging.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
By 2006 I had given birth to 4 children, 3 girls and a boy. Motherhood became the dominant role in my life. From 2003 until 2013 I was a stay-at-home mother. This was a very prolific time in my life. I was doing better financially moonlighting as an artist producing primarily at night than I had been working a full-time, 40 hour/week job. It felt good to be able to donate to the household while also being the primary caregiver to my children.
The art has always taken a backseat to family, and rightly so. Due to the nature of the subject matter revolving around my thoughts and feelings, the better I became at managing my daily life as a mother, the more time I would open up in the evening to create. A win win.
There were periods of time where life threw me into difficulty, and with it the art would highlight that sadness. During those times I found I avoided being creative so as to avoid seeing the rawness of whatever those challenges were. I also came to see that art that did make its way into the light during those trying times was hyper emotive. They have also historically become the first pieces to sell once shared.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am a multi-disciplinary artist working in various mediums including ink, pencil, paint, clay, quilting, and writing. I have enjoyed a lifelong affinity for tactile involvement. I am equally enamored with wordplay. When the pen/pencil/brush/needle ceases to define my emotional context it is the pursuit of words that gratifies and amplifies the point I want to make when self-expression is teeming.
I specialize in the ability to create how I feel within each medium, transferring that energy without restriction. When clay was added to my repertoire of tools I was overjoyed. Watching the art transform itself from 2D substrates onto the 3D plane of sculpture was an invigorating process, expanding my creative core. I am most proud of pursuing new mediums without hesitation, fully confident that the trust in my abilities to bring to life art that showcases the sensitivity of the female form will somehow do it justice.
Being prolific on a daily basis has made this life valuable in a way that when I lay to rest each night, I know that some crumb of my existence has manifested because I made the time to give it due.
I have been extremely fortunate to have gained an international collector base. Since 2008 my work has been shown and collected in France, England, Austria, Canada, the United States, and most recently Wales.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
I have collaborated often with other artists and have enjoyed that process immensely. I have worked with my father and all 4 of my children and been involved with ‘exquisite corpse’ projects as well. I am always eager and excited to participate in projects that combine multiple imaginations. I am a firm believer that great art materializes via the confluence of artistically driven people that dive into collaborative projects.
When we congregate down in South Texas where my father and sister live we spend many nights working on art cards as a group after dinner. The rendering of that activity is not only entertaining, it gives everyone a keepsake work of art to be treasured.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @jessicatehan
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TehanMechanic
- Twitter: @DioteeSantaFe
