Jesse Reno: ambition over direction -

When I found out that Jesse Reno was going to be at the National Art Education Conference this year, I was stoked. I’ve been following his artwork and blog for several years and I love how layered and complex his paintings are. You have to watch his process of transforming one thing into another while painting. He has several videos on his blog where you can watch him paint. I was excited to hear him talk, but it would have been really cool to watch a live painting demo. They should have live paintings at the opening reception, wouldn’t that be fun?

I took a lot of notes at his session titled “ambition over direction”, but he was talking pretty fast so hopefully I captured the essence of his speech. Today I am going to share with you some of the key points he made in his talk. If you attended the session and you feel as though I wrote something down inaccurately or I missed something important, let me know.

Jesse Reno at the NAEA Convention

He says that the act of painting is “not just about building a work of art, but building a life”.

His paintings undergo lots of changes throughout the process.

He may start by painting a shark, but after many layers of paint he might end up with a moose.

His painting is a process… adding and changing things until it feels right. Jesse paints over the parts he doesn’t like until he’s left with what he does like. At a certain point it just feels comfortable and right.

He paralleled making art with how his life evolved. Both are a process with many changes… keep following what you enjoy and keep doing it.

A point he kept repeating was that there is no one clear path to become an artist and there’s no one clear path in life. He didn’t set out to be an artist. He just loved painting, so he kept doing it. “Follow a direction until it’s uninspired and then change it.”

He started selling drawings in a tattoo shop, which led to a client requesting an art show in their hair salon. From there, he gained courage to set up other shows and he would take any opportunity to show his art. He had shows in people’s living rooms.

At one show in a living room, he met someone who changed his life. The guy convinced him that he could sell his artwork on Ebay. He started selling his artwork online and slowly starting making a living until he quit his day job. He gained shows and gallery representation all over the world.

After moving to Portland, Oregon, he saw a large wall on the side of a building that he wanted to paint on. He went for it! He approached the owner and showed him his artwork. He was given permission to paint on this huge wall. After doing this project, he became more known and other opportunities arose because people knew of this big mural.

He says to take every opportunity that comes to you.. even an art show in someone’s living room!

At first he had trouble talking about his artwork. He thought he painted what he liked. But as he began to notice recurring themes and imagery in his work, he discovered meanings within his paintings and learned about himself. If you look on his bio page and scroll all the way down, you can see some of the symbols he uses and the meanings he has discovered. For example, a branch means growth. Circles mean that we can walk in circles forever, so we need to make a choice.

Ambition Over Direction

Jesse had no clear direction, but he had a lot of ambition and a strong work ethic. He has made over 4,000 paintings and would seek out and take every opportunity that he could.

After the artist talk, I had another session I wanted to go to. After walking to the other building and spending 15 minutes trying to find the room, I arrived at the room and people were crowded out into the hallway and I was unable to get into the session. So, I walked back to the other building and saw Jesse at a table outside the auditorium. It was lucky that I didn’t make it into that room, because I was able to meet him in person and get one of his books of artwork. He drew this picture and signed it. (The circle was already there.)