Meet Jennie Milner

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennie Milner.

Jennie, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
The year I knew art was my preferred form of expression was the year I spent in Art Therapy after my Dad’s suicide. I was nine years old when I learned that it was easier for adults to understand my grief through pictures. I illustrate my life to this day. This was a very private practice until recently. I received my BFA from CSU in metalsmithing and made my career as a one-of-a-kind jewelry artist for 20 years. I decided ten years ago that my drawings could come out of the closet and I did that in a big way! Murals on the side of buildings! When my daughter started elementary school in upstate New York, the school didn’t have an art teacher. I wasn’t qualified to teach in the school so I opened an after-school art workshop called ArtDoors. We painted a giant mural at the New York State Zoo. After moving back to Colorado, I returned to jewelry making for the next three years. I was selling my work at a wholesale show in Philly, but spending all of my free time touring the city murals, asking questions and researching artists. Lily Yeh came across my radar during one of these trips and I fell in love with her and her ‘Empty Lot’ project in North Philly. She was doing everything I wanted murals to do! Bring the community together, express emotions by story telling through pictures, and inspire others to believe in their home towns.

While I got up the nerve to go big visually, I collaborated with my friend, Sarah Fox, on an experimental camp using the teaching of Richard Louv (‘Last Child in the Woods’), where we let kids govern themselves and experiment with supplies. We were asked to speak at a Teaching Outside the Box Conference about our camp where Lily Yeh was the keynote speaker! That was an amazing moment of affirmation and permission. I have since painted 19 murals with varying degrees of community involvement.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Liability Insurance is challenging as an artist in a building with 30 studio mates and two galleries. When I do public art, I have different needs than when I’m creating sculpture, and sometimes the building security becomes an issue that I can’t solve alone. I’m lucky to have health insurance through my husband’s company, but I know a lot of artists who maintain a “day job” for the sole purpose of staying insured. We take risks and we need to know that we can see a Doctor when things aren’t right. I am also a Mom. There are hundreds of daily challenges to face creating art with babies, young adults, and college aged dependents! I tend to plow ahead, sometimes forcing things to work. When my kids were little, I found ways to share care with other parents. As the kids got older, things got easier, until the financial burden of college tuition. I love my kids and I would have it no other way, but most days are a total juggle for time.

J.C. Milner Metalworks – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Currently I am painting murals for public community spaces and I’m making sculptures for sale. I love teaching, talking to strangers, and asking questions. I love telling stories and public art is all about story telling. I love to teach and I find I’m not doing enough of that right now, so I’ll be making some adjustments to pave the way for that soon. Stay tuned, it’s going to be great!

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
When I was a kid, I had a friend that was always with me. We’d get together on Saturday and ask each other “what do you want to do? Drag our dolls down the creek or do the bus stops?” Which meant literally walking the length of the creek with our dolls tied to ropes or riding our bikes and stopping at all the mailboxes where we pretended to be picking up passengers. We lived outside, we created complicated fantasy worlds and then next thing you know, we grew up. I’m still living 80% of my life in a fantasy world of my own creation.

Pricing:

• Murals are $15-25 per square foot
• Sculptures run $150-$1700

Contact Info:

• Address: 310 N. Railroad Avenue, Loveland, CO 80537
• Website: www.jcmilnermetalworks.com
• Phone: 970-227-2345
• Email: jcmilner@yahoo.com
• Instagram: jcmilner_artworks
• Facebook: J.C. Milner Metalworks
• Other: #jcmilner

Image Credit:
jcmilner (selfie)

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