A social worker by trade, an artist by night
My love for art and drawing started at a really young age. My grandma Jackie (who I was named after) was a great watercolor artist, and my father was an art major in college and made some incredible work. My love for drawing goes back as far as I can remember, and I can remember getting lost in sketches and doodles in every class of elementary school. As I got older I knew I had a love and eye for art, but never quite had a place to channel it. I would draw elaborate sketches in my room throughout high school, and tried my hand at painting, watercolor, clay and textiles in my early 20's.
Meanwhile, I studied to become a social worker, and started working at behavioral High Schools downtown Chicago as a high school social worker. Over the course of 7 years of doing this, I was always looking for powerful and beautiful quotes to hang on my office walls, use in groups, or give students to hang up at home that concisely summed up the lessons I was trying to teach them. I found such quotes incredibly hard to find however, as most quotes designed for schools are cheesy, overly reductive, and targeted towards elementary aged kids. I found it really hard to find mental health posters that my teens would be inspired by, and not roll their eyes at.
After 7 years of working in this setting, Covid struck, and two months before I had been gifted an Ipad Pro for my birthday. I had been teaching myself hand lettering and calligraphy for a couple months at this point, and decided to try my hand at illustrating and hand lettering a few quotes to hang in my office once the schools opened back up. As it turns out, they didn't open back up for a year, and hand lettering and digital illustration became an instant love that got me through that very slow and dark year.
I opened up my Etsy shop in May 2020, around the same time that I decided to leave school social work and go into private practice, working with adults. I continue to run my own private practice, and love that my business has been able to evolve and grow with me. It started with mental health quotes that I felt would speak to my adolescent clients, and now for the past 3 years, I have worked more on quotes that I often use with my adult clients as we work through therapeutic concepts together. I am constantly teaching myself new illustration techniques and styles (hence the ever-changing style of my prints), and practicing new hand-lettering and calligraphy techniques. Sometimes I feel my shop would benefit from more uniformity, but then I remind myself that my artistic expression is allowed to change, and grow, and be stretched- and I go on to try the next new style I'm excited about. Thanks for coming along on this journey with me. I am so so excited you're here. Your support of my shop is literally making my dreams come true.
-Jaci
