Personalized insight
Meet Artist Jane Gray
Jane Gray’s story is a fascinating one.
Not only is she an incredibly inspiring artist whose paintings look to energies beyond her vision, but she is a teacher herself too. Jane teaches the art of active imagination and she inspires other artists to develop confidence within themselves.
“In the world today it’s hard to have the confidence to show people who you really are,” Jane explains. She urges artists to have the faith to paint for themselves and not just for the market.
However she herself hadn’t fully mastered the art of confidence until she met Crista Cloutier. It was The Working Artist Masterclass that helped her to develop.
“Confidence comes from people who believe in you and this is what Crista gave me,” she explains.
Jane went to art school in England before living in Africa for 34 years. Whilst bringing up her children, she kept her pen to paper, but it wasn’t until 1995 that she seriously starting experimenting with paint.
Upon meeting Crista and hearing about The Working Artist a few years ago, she had no hesitations. She had previously struggled with refining her thoughts and ideas and condensing them into bios and statements. She didn’t know how to talk about her work or what direction to take her career.
She began to think more carefully about having a sense of direction. “If you don’t know where you’re going, you’re never going to get there,” she tells me.
The Working Artist helped her to move forward with focus by asking her to write down what she wanted from her art, where she was and where she wanted to be in ten year’s time.
Once Crista helped her to see what was possible, Jane began the exciting journey toward her goals.
Within the first year she sold around 70 paintings.
Her newfound confidence propelled her to submit work to exhibitions and she was accepted into the Royal Institute and the Society for Women’s Artists. She also made through the first round of the esteemed Threadneedle Prize.
Her proudest achievement to date has been her acceptance to the Society of Graphic Fine Art. Jane believes in the importance of drawing and the Society’s focus on this skill is what made it so important to her. Right after submitting, she found out she got in that very same day!
Jane attributes all these successes to the confidence she found from The Working Artist.
She’s now looking towards creating much larger paintings on canvas as well as developing her series and an upcoming London exhibition.
To see Jane’s beautiful work of spirit and learn why we are so in love with her, please visit http://janegrayart.com/
Written by Crista Cloutier, artist mentor + founder of The Working Artist. (learn more about Crista here)
