Biography
Growing up in Rosemount, Minnesota, Jessica was passionate about art and music. Her mother, with a degree in music education, was a piano teacher and her father had attended the Kansas City Art Institute; they inspired and encouraged Jessica's love of the arts, and provided a childhood rich with inquiry and creativity. After exhausting her high school's art program, including a year of independent study, she attended the University of Minnesota, planning to major in Astronomy. Art did not seem like a realistic career choice, though she took every drawing class offered at the U, a foundation that has proven invaluable. In the end, Jessica's love of all things and how they interweave led her to earn a BA in American Studies, which has significantly impacted her work. She moved to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho in 2000, established a family, and found small ways to keep making art with commissions and special projects. A brief, 2 year interlude in Palo Alto, CA for her husband's work led Jessica to a class in watercolor. Despite winning a major award for a watercolor in high school, it was a medium she had disliked and avoided in college. Relishing the intellectual components, the challenge, and the rewards of patience, she fell in love. Jessica’s first finished painting in the class, in 2007, was such a good experience, she decided to build towards a career in watercolor, and has spent the years since developing skills, entering competitions, exhibiting work, and growing a teaching practice.
Focusing on landscapes was a natural choice. In early childhood, Jessica’s bedroom window looked out over an undeveloped field of tall prairie grasses and birds. Her grandparents lived on a farm in central Minnesota, and she spent long days listening to the wind and watching storms thunder across the gently rolling hills. The freedom and solace she found while running through corn fields, climbing trees, and laying in the grass at night to watch the milky way developed an intense love of, and deep connection to, nature and place. Jessica was given her first camera at 6 years old, and she has been obsessively photographing landscapes ever since. This passion carries into her painting career, where she uses photography as a sketching medium. Jessica’s keen interest in social and cultural history, and their complex relationship with place, strongly influences her work.
Jessica's paintings have received many awards and can be found in numerous national and international private and public collections. She discovered the Artist in Residence programs at our national parks while on a family vacation, and began applying for positions in 2011. She has completed eight residencies for the National Park Service, one for the Bureau of Land Management, and she was the 2018 Artist in Residence for the Idaho Conservation League. Jessica has spent nearly 300 days in an official capacity, living and working in our national parks, and more as a visitor. It has had a profound impact on her work and life.
A signature member of the American Watercolor Society, National Watercolor Society, Northwest Watercolor Society, and Idaho Watercolor Society, Jessica has exhibited work with these notable institutions as well as the Transparent Watercolor Society of America, Watercolor USA, Western Federation of Watercolor Societies, Allied Artists of America, Richeson 75, Global Association of Watercolor Artists, Google Cultural Institute, the US Botanical Gardens, and more. Jessica paints and teaches workshops and classes out of Redbrick Art Studio in downtown Coeur d'Alene. She is the creator and former director of a unique extracurricular offering, the Fine Arts League, at Sorensen Magnet School of the Arts and Humanities. This endeavor earned Jessica the 2018 Coeur d'Alene Mayor's Award for the Arts in Education.
Watch Jessica’s TEDx Talk
Watch Light and Landscape Exhibit Talk
This talk was presented at North Idaho College in conjunction with the opening reception of Jessica's solo exhibit titled Light and Landscape.