Today we’d like to introduce you to Jefferis Peterson.
Hi Jefferis, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I went to college become an art major in the lates 1970’s, but it was a time of “self-expression” and “self-realization,” rather than teaching. I had a great instructor in high school, but not in college, so I dropped art as a major. I became a Christian in college and became a religion major. I worked in social welfare while my wife completed her Master in child education, and then I went to seminary and became a pastor in Pennsylvania. In 1993, I began working for a non-profit Christian education ministry as a developer for courses for online instruction and an e-magazine. I believe I was the first person to develop hyperlinked courses for Christian education in the world. While working in a mission church in Slippery Rock, PA, I started designing websites as a side business, which became a full time business in 1999 (Petersonsales.net). Getting back to my love of art, web design allowed me to do both art and earn a living, In 2006, I returned to painting in oils by painting the church where my daughter got married, as a present for her (I also did the ceremony). After my wife retired from teaching, we moved to Wimberley in 2014. Since then, while continuing to work as a web developer, I continued to paint and sell and became a part owner of the gallery, Art on 12, in Wimberley, where my art is also on display. (Arton12.com & https://Jefferis.Gallery ) My web clients range from California to Pennsylvania, and my paintings have sold to collectors from Washington D.C. and Ohio, to California transplants in Texas. I still preach occasionally at our church in Wimberley, where I am an elder/assistant. (https://wimberleychristianchurch.com)
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?
Major financial challenges as a self-employed web designer have been the major stock market crashes and recessions (2000 & 2008). In 2000, with the bursting of the tech bubble, 25% of people in my industry were laid off. By proportion, that is as many unemployed as during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. If my wife had not been a public school teacher with a decent salary, it would have been very difficult to survive. With a solo business in such rough economic waters, there were many times when there would be no one wanting to spend money on websites or advertising.
While art is a passion, it is also an avocation. No one except the very famous and acclaimed can survive on art sales, or at least art sales alone. When you can sell pieces at $10,000 a pop, you can call painting a vocation 🙂 My wife is also a painter, and together our sales equal about 1/4 of what my website sales, but the ratio of art to web development is slowly shifting towards art.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
It is easier to show than to tell. My specializing is mostly in the form of landscape painting either in realistic or impressionistic styles, although I do some abstracts as well. My subject matter is gathered from our travels to Europe and the Mediterranean to National Parks and various states in the US. What seems to sell the most for me are National Parks, Southwest Adobe, California, Colorado, and local hill country pieces.
I guess I am proudest of some of the pieces I have sold that surprise me that I was able to paint them after I have done them. I look at them and wonder how I did them and if I could do them again! Some of the pieces on my “sold” works pages on my personal website are examples of these: Sedona, Angel’s Landing, San Tropez, e.g., ( https://jefferis.gallery/sold-paintings/)
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I began drawing in pen and ink in my early teens. My mother was an artist (JeanPeterson.com) and, in high school, she got me to take classes with her teacher, Mr. Dan Mistrik in Chevy Chase, MD. He taught the Old Master’s technique of blocking in with darks and building up lights. He was the inspiration for me wanting to be an art major in college.
For several years, I refined my techniques studying with Lilli Pell.
Currently, I am studying with Rusty Jones (https://rustyjonesart.com).
My Mom was my biggest cheerleader, who passed away in 2024. Funny thing is that some of the pieces my artist friends thought were my best, most outside-the-box and most creative, she hated 🙂 She always said I was selling my pieces “too low.” Maybe so, but without an agent pumping your work, you are swimming within a huge school of other talented artists, and there are many here in Wimberley.
Pricing:
- $125 for 8×10
- $1,100 for 30×40
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Jefferis.Gallery
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jefferisp7/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jefferis.gallery/
- Other: http://www.PetersonSales.net
Image Credits
All Images by Jefferis Kent Peterson
