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Check out Debra Jones’s Artwork

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Debra Jones.

Debra, we’d love to hear your story and how you got to where you are today both personally and as an artist.
I was born in Colorado and have now lived more of my life in Arizona, but I combined my art in what I am happy to call my Western Style. I always made art. Even when I stopped doing it as a profession, I was doing art projects for friends. Around 2000 I decided to ease out of my day job and decide to be what I wanted to grow up to be. An artist.
I studied in the ancient Rocky Mountain School of Art. It was a career school! Seriously! Making art used to be a career field. I learned how to “spec type” which is old fashioned talk for picking a font, produce art for reproduction and make original pictures. 80% of what I did anyone can attempt on a computer – heck even a phone these days with a good app! Going back into art was easy, deciding how to earn a living was tricky. I paint what I see. I went to the Scottsdale Artists School for Open Studio up to three times a week, honing my skills at capturing likenesses.
I was accepted into the Pastel Society of America show in NYC on my first go and travelling to see it, I ended up stranded on Manhattan during the Sept. 11 tower attacks. I was remarkably safe and it gave me a new attitude toward life.

I am still captivated by the MOMENT. The fleeting image, the sparkle in the eye. My artist statement is “I paint anything with eyeballs.” It is where my heart is. I have made a decent if sparse living portraying pets and family members throughout the country with my miniature watercolors but I don’t have a favorite medium.

In recent years my work has shown in the Mountain Oyster Club show in Tucson. I love the whole cowboy culture. I grew up next to the old Little Britches fairgrounds and all my neighbors in suburban Littleton, were horse folk! It seemed so natural. Campfire Girls gave me a more than normal respect for Native American culture. I attend and paint Pow Wow participants and have always loved archaeology… especially of the Southwest. To highlight my real talent – portraiture – and as an experiment in trying to make old fashioned portrait painting more relevant, and more modern, I was the organizer of “Women Making Faces – Notable Arizona Women Painted by Women Artists” I met many amazing subjects including Sandra Day O’Connor and Billie Jo Herberger among others.  Many of them became patrons after the show. I am still having a hard time acclimating to civilization!

In June of this year I moved into the Mesa Artspace Lofts, as I call us, “seed humans for city gentrification”. We are a community which was created and populated with preference for artists, so I am  have found my new home almost as beautiful as some of the vistas in the Petrified Forest.

We’d love to hear more about your art. What do you do you do and why and what do you hope others will take away from your work?
I always could draw. I had a more inquiring mind than showed on the outside but art was a given. I got a general Associates Degree, then attended art school, dropping out to WORK! I worked in advertising for a while, with performing in the local theater groups, including Phoenix Little Theater after I moved, but gave up commercial art. For about 15 years.

When I realized it was WHO I WAS, I began trying to figure out how to earn a living. As I said, my skill set is nearly antique, but I could capture a likeness. I got a scholarship through an online artists’ community to take a portrait workshop in the Boston area. A talented illustrator gave us so many tips and tricks about doing art as a business… including a few tips about portraits:

1. it is not a competition. I was always, in the back of my mind in studio settings, trying to get the BEST likeness. I was obsessing. The picture making part of it was not nearly as important as getting the model to want a photo with it.
2. I get paid to make the model look like THEY want to look not how I see them. One of my earliest commissions was a big disappointment because she rejected it. Perfect likeness…. oddly she was doing a gift for her not so cherished husband and passive aggressively, we ended up with a lovely likeness of her back. I now know the difference between making art and making money!
3.Try new things but don’t go nuts. I have way too many styles and take too many suggestions but have finally decided I do one thing. I make faces. I have learned to smile and thank people with wonderful “suggestions”. It is hard to explain the number of pictures I would make if I had no worries as to what to do with them when I got done! Creativity is never lacking. Direction and business sense had finally given me permission to say NO to the things I do not need to challenge myself with. I have so many ideas and love the generosity of my clients, that I appreciate people aiming their creative urges through my work, but I finally am confident enough in my skills to just say, “Wow, that is a good idea.” And not be troubled by no follow through.

How can artists connect with other artists?
Facebook. I had a cyber Monday special and paid my rent and then some in just one day!
I know social media is a tricky thing these days. But as a part-time hermit, I struggle with going crazy looking for the next commission and the problem of needing to get out of the house and change my clothes when I am in the  throes of a painting!

There are a number of great community leagues, most of which I have been a member at one time or another.
As the bulk of my work is on commission, it is awkward to do shows, but I love to demonstrate. I do demos in the leagues and meet a new people all over town. I donate to charities and require them to give me room to do my thing.
As far as heart to heart artists face to face, open studios throughout the valley give you the best place to mingle.

Do you have any events or exhibitions coming up? Where would one go to see more of your work? How can people support you and your artwork?
I am always taking commissions. THIS VERY MOMENT I am rebuilding my websites but don’t expect to see them until after the first of the year. Presently I can be found at www.jonesportraitart.com but it will soon be my professional portraits only page. Right now, it is a jam-packed sampler of everything I do and did! It will eventually be re-homed at www.debrajonesart.com so bookmark them both. I have blogs for many of my projects.

Starting in 2009, I decided to do a painting of one dog a day for a year. My http://dog-a-dayartblog.blogspot.com brings you up to current with my pet portraits, with a human and odd project thrown in.
http://picturesmithjones.blogspot.com features my western work. Including my “tincup portraits” charcoal drawings on my unique coffee stained paper backgrounds.

Also, lots of wildlife and cowboys and girls. People who want to experience the adventures of an older Artist in Residence in the national park can see me and my cat at http://petrifiedair.blogspot.com.

Contact Info:

Image Credit:
©Debra Jones 2009-19

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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