Today I took a quick trip across town to visit my friend Jennifer Cowley’s studio.  I met Jennifer last year, when she joined the ArtSeen Studio tour here in Frisco.  She came by and visited with me in the fall and I instantly felt like this was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Her studio is in the front of her home, and is a work of art in itself.  She has the best furniture in there!  I wish I’d taken more photos, but I’ll share some of the highlights.

Here’s the infamous pink stove that she uses for storage. When she moved here from Oak Cliff, she couldn’t bear to part with some of her vintage fixtures, so she just brought them with her and has found creative uses for them.  I wish I’d gotten a pic of her awesome orange metal sink!

She has a great desktop that is also a light box, which was a hand-me-down from a fellow artist.  We had a fun conversation about how most things we have were not purchased new, and many of them were free.   It’s all about seeing the beauty in uncommon objects and using things for alternate purposes (and knowing others who have really cool junk they’re willing to give away).

And then there are beautiful vignettes like this, that honestly I don’t even know what to say.  Perfection.

Most artists I know have really interesting stories about how they got to where they are now, and she’s no exception. I enjoyed getting to know her backstory a bit, how she began her college education in the dental field, went into architecture, and then truly found herself in art.  Out of college, she worked in an art gallery for a while, then a serendipitous encounter with the very successful artist Frank Frazier changed her path entirely.  She got to travel and work with Frank for a couple of years, and he has become her mentor as an artist.  I can see his influence in her work, although she definitely has a strong aesthetic of her own.  See her online portfolio at www.jenmonet.com.

One of the best things about having other artists as friends is that they “get” you in a way that most other people don’t. There’s a drive in you that’s both a blessing and a curse, and it makes you quite different than a lot of your other friends and acquaintances.   You see and experience the world differently.  Your ideals are different.  And as an artist in a suburban town, it’s even harder to find others that think like you.   Glad I’ve found a few.