Defining a Body of Work

connecting themes, contemplating purpose, while strategizing and prioritizing the work

Hello from the depths of my studio chaos!

To force myself to focus on my current dilemma of project prioritization (amidst my ongoing struggles to articulate how and why I make my art), I am taking over “An Artist’s Notes” today with a few practical matters to help me better define the projects I wish to pursue and consider whether they accurately represent my current “body of work”.

As part of this process, I welcome your input and insights!

If you’d like to enter into dialogue and share your thoughts (on your work or mine), I happily welcome them - either with a comment here or via email or snail mail. I would love to hear from you!

1. First, I need to choose which projects on which to focus, looking for the threads that tie them together.

2. Then I need a plan of action: assigning tasks (in my beautiful new weekly planner - yes, I splurged on myself), and finding a means of accountability - which can be as simple as what I’m doing here, shouting my intentions out into the world, or for more urgency, submitting project proposals and applications (which, if I’m lucky, will turn into hard deadlines for showing/installing my work.)

But making (or planning to make) the art is just a part of the process - it’s the “What” and “How”. Articulating the “Why” is another.

I started “An Artist’s Notes” in 2020 with “Hope, Love and the Creative Process” as a means to improve my writing and learn to articulate that “Why”.

Hope, Love and The Creative Process

Writing about my art practice helps me see the art more clearly.

My art practice is evolving. As with any profession, I believe it’s essential to continually grow and learn as part of a fulfilling practice. I continue to take classes and workshops, attend lectures and art events, and read with an eye toward concepts that influence my work. Still, my viewpoint is often too close to my art. My ideas become mired in specific experiences. Writing can help me step back and look at things from a broader perspective, allowing me to organize my thoughts, weigh ideas, and edit, edit, edit (both the writing and the art!) From this vantage point, with the knowledge of what history and personal experiences I bring to my work, I can see and feel connections that may not yet be physically apparent, and then see how this new knowledge can influence the art-making. Or at least, by writing here today, that is my hope!

At the same time, although my work is often very personal, I want it to have a relationship with the viewer, who will bring their own perspective to the art. I want to leave the door open for interpretation and see how it relates individually as well as more universally.

Sharing my art helps me understand its humanity.

It can be scary to share something as personal as art. One negative reaction can shut the door to years of incredible and meaningful work. How tragic is that? Self-doubt can overwhelm any creative person. Yet, by understanding that reactions are human and everyone’s experiences are unique, negativity can be transformed. A reaction, whether positive or negative, presents an opportunity to engage in a conversation and learn something about yourself, another person, a community, or the art itself. Alternatively, it presents an important opportunity to build resilience.

I couldn’t share the work I now make without those early years building resiliency. This work requires me to continually step out of my comfort zone and reevaluate what I’m trying to create or convey. And 2026 will require even more commitment and discomfort.

Studio Projects in Process 2024-2027

The following are projects I currently have “open” in one sense or another, and the thoughts that make them urgent for me. I plan to finish the year by prioritizing their progress while deprioritizing many of the other studio tasks that seem to consume my time, such as social media and marketing and doing a better job of batch-processing others, such as shipping, wholesale, bookkeeping, and even my posts on “An Artist’s Notes” and “Collage O”. (I’ve said this before, though, so we’ll see how it goes…)

It’s taken time for me to move my art practice from one focused on marketing and sales to one centered on process, presence, and community. It’s an entirely different mindset, with completely different ways to engage with my viewers, my art, and how my work is funded.

(Currently, I’m funded mainly by residual sales of licensed images - THANK YOU to everyone who still purchases through this pipeline! Without constantly making new license-appropriate images, however, I expect this income source to continue to dwindle. I’m now exploring grant funding and other opportunities for my future endeavors, as I also seek ways to fund an MFA possibility. Whatever happens, though, I plan to share my experiences here, and I hope you’ll continue to join me on this ever-evolving journey.)

The weight of these projects will shift as I find/make residencies in which to work on them and hopefully secure opportunities to show them over the next 2 years (or more). However, whatever the future holds, this list will serve as my reference point as I take my next steps.

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Of the Mind | 2024 - present

(Installation I complete, Installation II in progress)

Collagraph with Stitched and Vintage Fibers from “True Prophesies 1”

“In this installation, Lommers shares her experiences exploring the relationship between mind, self, and memory while revealing her insecurities, ambitions, realities, and dreams. In doing so, she hopes this space allows others to explore their experiences and embrace the complexity and vulnerability we each hold and the resilience and strength found with each other and within each stitch of thread.”

~ Artist Statement, “Of the Mind”
Full Artist Statement

I continue to reflect on this installation as I seek opportunities to refine and augment the elements I first presented at the Arts Center of Corvallis’ Corrine Woodman Gallery in 2024. Some elements have shown up in other parts of my art practice, but the core project is still very dear to me (inspired by family history and the effects of Dementia and Alzheimer’s) and is waiting for me to make new progress. Finding enough time and space to create on this scale is difficult, though, both physically and financially - problems which I am working to resolve. Currently, I am waiting to see if I will be called off the waitlist for an artist residency opportunity in 2026, and I will be applying for installation opportunities in 2027.

Project Elements

• Threadbare (a mixed media “quilt” fashioned of fiber and paper)

• Gauge (knit swatches with quotes attached related to memory)

• The Untold Stories of Juniper Leigh (mixed media paper “windows” reflecting the “true” and “false” nature of memory.)

• Room with a Garden View (Mock Sitting Room including a Rocking Chair,

  Mannequin wearing a Mixed Media dress and headpiece, and the Video, “Mixed

  Realities”).

• True Prophesies (not included in original installation) Part 1: a precursor to the original installation, collagraphs using historical photos and vintage fibers. Part 2: based on photographs and still images from the filming of “Mixed Realities”, and other historical photos and fiber.

The original Installation of this project was a space where “Threadbare” could act as one wall to form the “Room with a Garden View”. I envision the next iteration of this project featuring all four walls of the room constructed from fiber and paper, thereby making it a freestanding centerpiece in a larger space. I am considering locations for a proposal as well as residencies that could provide dedicated time for making significant progress.

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Untitled Collaboration Proposal | 2025-2027

(Conceptual Stage)

Conceptual Image I

I recently proposed a new project to an artist friend I’ve long admired, whose work resonates with me on several levels. We are in the initial planning stages for this project, so I won't offer more information just yet. Look for more details in 2026!

Project Elements

• Photographic Images

• Fiber Forest

• Secret Room

• Mixed Media Collaborative pieces

• Paintings inspired by the Fiber Forest

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UnEarthed (Working Title) | New

(Process Testing)

With these pieces (and I’ve only just started this one, pictured above), I aim to document a history of the layers as they build up to a point at which I can “excavate” their meaning through the organic materials that try to consume and obfuscate their presence.

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The Untold Stories of Juniper Leigh | -2026

(An ambitious idea starting with the 2024 NaNoWrimo, which turned into a Novel, a Fairy Tale, a Song, a Tarot Deck, and an Art Journal project)

Unbeknownst to me, this project had started years ago and secretly found its way into other aspects of my art practice in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. The lead character in this ongoing personal dialogue is finally getting the spotlight in a book I started in 2024, with a completed rough draft now near completion. It is just part of a larger view of a universe running parallel to my own, and, for better or for worse (really, I’m writing novels now?! Who am I?) I plan to share it with you all in 2026!

Project Elements

• Novel, “The Untold Stories of Juniper Leigh” (working title)

• Oracle Card Deck (late 2026?)

• Juniper Leigh’s sketchbook

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Daily Devotionals

(BKind Mini Collages, Botanical Drawings, and Photo Inspirations)

Finally, an art practice that began in 2020 continues to evolve in new forms. It started with daily photographs and has included fiber arts practices, skill-development opportunities, and, this year, it has taken (and is still taking) the shape of botanical drawings.

Project Elements

• 100 days of noticing (photographs overlayed with a line of text)

• The Swatch Project

• 100 days of botanical drawing

• “Wish You Were Here” (text from vintage postcards stitched onto the image)

• Portals (stitches doors, windows, and magical points of entry)

• BKind Art Cards

• Book of Inspirations (a Book currently in development)

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When I look at the projects I’ve chosen to represent here, I see an emphasis on art that is created slowly yet with urgency, offering opportunity for reflection and dialogue. It combines human elements and emotions within the context of a natural world that envelops and sustains us.

But why do I continue to make it?

My art practice provides me with a sense of calm, purpose, and a vehicle through which to understand the world around me—to demonstrate the profound meaning of our connections to one another and to the world around us. Our matter is the matter of the universe. We are one and we are many. We exist in contradiction and companionship, too often focusing on our differences, yet coexisting on a continuum hidden in the earth beneath our feet.

“… the mind is formed by struggle, not by tranquility.”

~ Gianni Rodari

I’m currently reading The Grammar of Fantasy by Gianni Rodari, in which he encourages the reader to grapple with finding connections between seemingly disparate ideas. He writes of the “fantastic binomial” (a process he coined in which a story is created from two unrelated words). He examines each word from various viewpoints, delighting in the unexpected tales that arise.

“… it is interesting to note how any randomly chosen word can function as a magic word to unearth those fields of memory that had been resting under the dust of time.”

As I continue to struggle with the how and why of my art, I am both tormented and awed by possibility. If I persist on this path, what magic might I unearth?

I always was a sucker for hiking further up the trail to see what was just beyond the next bend… and the next…

Curiosity. Maybe that is why I create.

How about you? What, how, or why do you make art (in whatever form that takes)? I’d love to know.

~ Jennifer