Welcome back to SUNDAY STUDIOS
Today we are featuring artist and teacher JACK ROSS! Some of
you may know him already; Jack is a consistant face around the gallery. We are
so excited to dive into his studio!
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| Paintings in Jack`s dining room studio |
We asked Jack...
What’s a typical day in the studio look
like to you?
Currently my
studio space is actually in my dining room! I’ve been working here since about
2017 when my partner and I moved back to Halifax after spending a couple years
living and working in Vancouver.
I grew up in
Nova Scotia, and had lived in Halifax for a long time before that, but worked
in a similar “work with what you’ve got”, small apartment space – living
situation. With the exception of the studio spaces at NSCAD University, which I
spent a lot of time in when I was a student, (finished my BFA in 2012), I’ve never really had a formal studio
space. While it’s certainly a long term professional goal, there’s a lot of
pros and cons to consider with investing in a space. For me, the combination of
financially viable, shared space with the right people, (or private space in
the right place), just hasn’t happened yet. I’m not too worried about it
though! I manage well and I’m confident that it’ll happen when I’m ready for it
to happen.
I lead a
pretty busy life so having a space at home actually works out well for me! I
teach courses in Painting and Drawing for both adult students and teenagers
with NSCAD’s Extended Studies Program (Continuing Education). They’re beginner
friendly accessible classes that don’t count towards a degree, but provide a great
overview of what taking art as a full time student at the university level is
like. I often get a lot of students who take some classes with me and then
eventually decide that they want to apply to NSCAD to take a full degree. I
started teaching 1-2 courses per term back in 2014. This year I’ve worked my
way up to 6 adult classes throughout the week and 2 teen courses on Saturdays.
It’s a bit nuts, but it leaves my just enough time to be able to still get my
own work done. I love teaching. It’s really rewarding, keeps me on top of my
technical information, keeps me connected to the community, keeps me on top of
my rent (haha), and has actually changed my habits when it comes to my own
painting practice.
I fluctuate
between working inside in my “dining room studio” and working outdoors with a
portable easel “painting en plein-air”. I really like the directness of working
from life so I try to get out as much as I can for outdoor painting during the
warmer months, including spring and fall. When I am working indoors I basically
end up rearranging the dining room to have some space. Its usually a mess in
here, and if I’ve got a lot of work mid-progress it stays that way for months
until we have friends over and I have to do some minor cleanup. My partner likes
to do sewing projects in here too, so there’s always some clutter around.
Things pile up but sometimes in-progress work lying around makes a great
conversation starter for folks visiting.
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| Snaps of Jack`s materials and studio setup |
What are you working on right now?
Right now
I’m working away on some more landscape paintings with the goal of having a
good body of work ready for some show opportunities in the Fall! So far it’s a
combination of pieces done on site outdoors - “plein-air painting” - and work
from photographs usually completed indoors in the “studio”.
I always
work from my own photos! Sometimes quick snapshots on my phone captured while
I’m out, and sometimes slightly more planned out shots taken with a pretty
mid-range digital SLR (Nikon). Getting detailed, high quality images is far
less important to me then capturing something that really conveys the look and feel
of the space or environment I’m working from. I’m really big into looking at
the effects of light, colour, the weather, and architectural space, and how
they translate in paint. (in a sort of impressionist-y but direct contemporary
painting way). All of these things are great opportunities to explore paint’s
material qualities: brush-mark, movement, thickness, colour, and the ways that
paint can “suggest form” while still retaining its identity as “paint”. Since working
from photo references is essentially the default way that most artists work
today, I feel like it’s really important to be balancing that out by working
directly from life when I get the opportunity to. Plein-air painting has been a
big part of my practice for at least the last 8 years and I’ve found that it’s
really changed the way I work in studio when I am going back to photos. I try
to really encourage everyone I meet through classes, the gallery, and art in general
to get out and try Plein-air painting. It’s challenging, but super rewarding.
Keeps you coming back to it. The pieces I’m working on now are small (and big)
paintings of both recognisable urban parts of Halifax, and natural landscapes
outside the city. Day and night-time settings all linked together through a
focus on illuminated surfaces and glowing light.
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Plein-air painting by Jack at point pleasant park
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Is (painting) your only form of art or do you practice art in other ways too? (music, baking, writing, etc.)
I do a lot of cooking – I used to watch a lot of shows on Food Network, and have picked up some good tips from that and things you see online. I’m a big fan of Chopped, Hell’s Kitchen, Top Chef, Chef’s Table, etc. I also got into cocktail mixing at home during the pandemic when everything was in lock-down. (Mixology was my covid hobby – haha). My favourites to mix so far are simple classics (old fashioned, sidecar, whisky sour, negroni.) I think I do a good job with a bourbon based whisky sour including the proper egg-white foam, and angostura bitters.
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| Jack painting plein-air |
Do you have any advice to offer/ best piece
of advice you’ve received?
So, for a
long time I actually felt pretty bad about my studio space and art practice.
(Where things were going art-wise & career wise). It took a lot of
reflection, time, and confidence to move past that. I remember pretty early on
after graduation from art school, I had a very condescending experience with an
older well established artist who said something to the effect of “If you don’t
have a studio space, then you’re not a real artist, you’re just a hobbyist!”. (meaning
a big properly equipped, funded, workshop outside your home). This wasn’t an isolated
incident, and to be really frank about it: “f* that” – I think is a completely appropriate
response. Having gone through the “art school” experience I fully understand where
this comes from, but it’s a pretty narrow, privileged, view to have; ignoring
the numerous examples of historically important artists who have worked without
studios, worked in apartment bedrooms, worked outdoors, or worked while in
transit moving from place to place. In fact, most artists in 2025 actually have
a hard time securing studio space. In my own case I think, yeah, it is kind of
bizarre that my day job involves teaching introductory courses at a university,
yet I’m also not in a financially viable position for it to be worth paying for
a studio space as an independent artist. This is one of the realities of living
in our times – affordability is forcing artists to become creative about where
and how they define their practices. Short term gig work, temporary artist
residencies, working from home, and the studio existing wherever the artist
goes have become the new norm in many ways.
I can’t
remember where I heard this but a really good piece of advice that kind of
stuck with me was this: Being an artist is a really long game. For many of us
it’s not really a choice, we’re just sort of compelled to keep making stuff –
and usually against better judgment. With that in mind you have to continue to
always think of yourself as an artist. If life interrupts your ability to make work,
that’s fine, you can always come back to it, you’re still an artist. If you
don’t have access to everything you need, you’re still an artist. You’ll
eventually figure out a solution. It doesn’t matter where or when you started.
Being an artist is a lifelong engagement.
Want to see what works we have available from Jack?
Check out more HERE!
Thank you for reading this week's Sunday Studio Days blog!
Stay Tuned for more behind the scenes & creative spaces next week!
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