After enjoying a challenging career of 27 years in the urban planning field, I hoped there might be a different form of creativity locked up inside of me. And when I had a chance to retire in 2002, I had the time to explore several art forms.
Silk painting and dyeing was my first adventure. Courses are offered in this medium at Penland and Arrowmont and I had the opportunity to attend both schools and focus on the form of silk dying called shibori. In the summer of 2012, I had the honor of studying at Haystack under Yoshiko Wada, an internationally accomplished shibori artist. I work my dyed pieces into scarves, handbags, jackets and pillows and sometimes add vintage kimono pieces.
Non-objective acrylic painting and collage pieces are also some of my favorite work. Joan Blackburn, a Pensacola award winning watercolor artist, introduced me to this world and countless ways to express feeling through texture, color, layering and adding dimensional objects. I also studied at Arrowmont with Mary Todd Beam (non-objective acrylic painting) and Jiyoung Chung (joomchi Korean paper art), and at other workshops with Joan Fullerton, Robert Burridge and Michael Shemchuk. I found myself now looking at almost everything with a “new” set of eyes and still have a lot to learn. But that is the fun part of art to me – always trying something different and discovering that sometimes a piece you initially think needs to be abandoned or at least placed back in “rest” mode in the portfolio can emerge as one of your better pieces.Jennifer Fleming is a native Pensacolian who loves this area. She is a self taught artist working in multi-media including acrylic paints, torn paper, found objects and fabrics composed into a uniquely interesting and colorful compositions. Jennifer has pursued her chosen art form through workshops at several famous art schools including Penland in North Carolina, Arrowmont in Tennessee and Haystack School in Maine. Jennifer also participates in workshops locally with visiting artists. Jennifer tells us “My professional career was in urban planning so that form of physical design also influences my artwork.” and uses that background and her inspiration through Nature, Urban scenes, and shapes she encounters to apply them to the artistic styles of abstract expressionism, impressionism and cubism in an amalgamation style with an Asian influence with layered objects and paper and asymmetric compositions.
