Today we’d like to introduce you to Jesseca Smith.
Hi Jesseca, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Art has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, surrounded by mountains, forests, water and dramatic skies, and that landscape became deeply embedded in the way I see the world. I was always creating, but my path to becoming a professional artist was anything but linear.
As a young artist in Olympia, Washington, I had the opportunity to apprentice under a Polish master painter. That experience gave me a foundation in traditional painting techniques and, more importantly, taught me to really see~light, movement, atmosphere and color. Those lessons have stayed with me throughout my life.
My career eventually took me in another direction. I became an entrepreneur and educator and spent many years building businesses and teaching others. Art, however, never really left me. I continued creating, observing and collecting images and experiences in my mind, even during the years when painting wasn’t my primary profession.
Eventually, I reached a point in my life when returning fully to art felt less like a career decision and more like coming home.
Today I am a full-time oil painter living in the Texas Hill Country. My work is strongly influenced by the landscapes and memories of the Pacific Northwest, along with the light, color and character of the places I’ve encountered since leaving it. I’m particularly drawn to landscapes and subjects that carry a sense of atmosphere, memory or story.
Over the past year, my work has been juried into exhibitions, received awards, been shown in galleries and found its way into private collections. I’ve also begun teaching young artists, which has brought another part of my creative life full circle.
At 50, I feel like I’m entering one of the most exciting chapters of my career. I’m no longer asking myself whether I’m allowed to call myself an artist. I simply am one. And now I’m interested in seeing just how far I can take it.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth or particularly straight road. One of my greatest challenges has actually been giving myself permission to fully claim the word artist.
Like many creative people, I spent years doing what needed to be done. I built businesses, became an educator, raised a family and created a successful career in an entirely different industry. Painting was always part of me, but there were long periods when practicality had to take precedence over creativity.
Returning to art professionally brought a different kind of challenge: vulnerability. Creating something deeply personal is one thing; putting it on a wall, attaching your name and a price to it, submitting it to juries and galleries, and allowing strangers to decide whether they connect with it is something else entirely. Rejection is simply part of this profession. I’ve had to learn that a “no” doesn’t necessarily say anything about the value of the work.
I’ve also had to resist the idea that there is one correct path to becoming an artist. I didn’t follow the traditional trajectory of art school, gallery representation and then career. My life happened in between. And I’ve come to realize that those years weren’t lost time; they gave me something to paint from.
At this point in my life, I’m much less interested in asking for permission. I paint because this is what I’m supposed to be doing. The challenge now is continuing to push myself creatively, taking the risks that come with being seen, and trusting that the right opportunities and audience will find the work.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am primarily an oil painter, and my work is rooted in landscape, memory and our emotional connection to place. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest, so mountains, water, mist, forests and expansive skies are almost a visual language for me. Now living in the Texas Hill Country, I find myself equally fascinated by the completely different light, terrain and atmosphere of the Southwest.
I don’t approach a landscape with the goal of simply reproducing what a camera could capture. I’m interested in what a place felt like. I often heighten color, shift light or simplify elements to capture the memory or emotion of being there. There is a sense of realism in my work, but also something dreamlike. I want the viewer to recognize the place, or feel as though they somehow remember it, even if they’ve never actually been there.
I think what sets my work apart is that intersection between observation and memory. Nature is often the subject, but underneath that I’m painting ideas of belonging, solitude, wonder and connection.
One of the unexpected joys of this chapter has been sharing the studio with other people. I’ve had the privilege of creating alongside my daughter, teaching my mother-in-law and her friends, and giving private art lessons to homeschooled children. Watching someone especially a young person begin tentatively and then flourish as they discover their own ability and creative voice has been incredibly rewarding. Art has become not only something I create, but something I get to share.
I’m proud that my own work is connecting with people as well through juried exhibitions, awards, galleries and collectors who choose to bring my paintings into their homes. But perhaps what I’m proudest of is developing a voice that feels genuinely my own while helping other people discover theirs.
I’m not interested in chasing what happens to be fashionable in the art world. I want to continue becoming a better painter, remain curious, and make work that is unmistakably mine.
Is there any advice you’d like to share with our readers who might just be starting out?
My advice is to begin before you feel ready. Don’t wait for someone else to give you permission to call yourself an artist, and don’t assume there is one correct path to becoming one.
Make the work. Make a lot of it. Some of it will be wonderful, some of it won’t, and all of it will teach you something. Study artists you admire, learn technique, take classes when you can, but eventually you have to stop comparing your beginning or even your middle to someone else’s career and develop your own voice.
I would also say: put your work out into the world. Enter the juried show. Approach the gallery. Apply for the opportunity. Hang the painting. Teach the class. You will hear no. Sometimes you’ll hear nothing at all. Neither is a reason to stop.
And perhaps most importantly, stay curious. Art isn’t something you ever completely master. I’m still learning every time I stand in front of a canvas, and I hope I always will.
Your life doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s for you to become an artist. You can begin at 20, begin again at 50, change direction, take years away, raise children, build another career and come back to it. There is no expiration date on becoming who you were meant to be.
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