“I would prefer to make guitars and give them away, if it was feasible to do that.”
For Stephen Ziegenfuss, it’s easy to love wood.
Its strength, its smell, even its taste – wood is a noble material to work with.
That’s why Stephen loves to make it sing as a guitar maker. An engineer by training, he loves to shape and bend the material into sonic works of art for his Ziegenfuss Guitars company.
Stephen has been building guitars since college when he tried making his own bass. From there, he built more guitars for friends and family, especially the parents of friends who could help him pay for parts.
“They kind of paid for my education – they’d pay for the materials that went into it,” he says.
From there, he worked on repairing guitars, learning about their inner workings, and before long he had a name brand and a website set up to sell his custom bodies.
More than that, Stephen likes to make things with his hands. Woodworking was prevalent in his home, he says, and he’s always enjoyed tinkering and making. That’s how he got into engineering. It was his artistic side – both in guitar playing and photography – that helped shape his guitar projects.
It started pragmatically enough. Stephen remembers seeing a guitar that he would’ve liked to own, if it weren’t for the high price tag. What would happen if he tried to mimic the design and build his own guitar?
“There’s a certain group of people with my personality who say, ‘I’ll just build it myself,'” he says. “Making a guitar was the perfect crossroads of all those things: working with my hands, engineering, and music.”
That first guitar didn’t exactly hit the mark. But over the years, he’s built his skills up enough so that he can build his own guitar at the level that originally inspired him.
Business-wise, Stephen is working on forming relationships with artists and getting name recognition in the boutique guitar industry. It’s one thing to make a quality guitar, but it’s another to make yourself known to the instrument-buying public.
When it comes right down to it, though, Stephen makes guitars to participate in the magic of music making. And to get his hands dirty in the process of making.
His senses get involved, too: Stephen loves the smell and the taste of the woods he uses, like African sapele (tastes great) and rosewood (the smell).
“The variability of the material is so cool,” Stephen says.
Walnut, cherry, sassafras, spruce, ash, hickory, walnut – these are his raw materials, and he appreciates the engineering quality of wood, too. Stephen says that wood, as a composite material, is great to work with. It’s robust and durable, and its strength-to-weight ratio is top-notch.
This is why Stephen makes other things out of wood, like bike frames. Stephen says he could make a bike frame that competes with metal in terms of durability. And, he says, the ride on a wood-frame bike is really smooth because the material absorbs high-frequency vibrations.
“Certain days, you just feel inspired to build different things,” he says. “And I love using wood as my medium.”
Stephen, along with his wife and three daughters, loves the lifestyle that Jackson affords.
“The pace of life here, for us, is just right,” he says. “If I were somewhere else, I wouldn’t nearly have the time to pursue things like this. It’s such a tremendous value added to life.”
Now that I’m a few weeks removed from launching my portrait project, Artists In Jackson, I thought it’d be helpful to share a few thoughts on the process – maybe for others thinking about tackling a self-published photo book.
I broke this down into sections, because there is a lot to think about and digest.
To Self Publish or Not To Self Publish
This one was easy for me: self publish!
It’s so easy these days to make and publish a photo book. There are vendors begging you to print with them. I get coupons all the time – 25% off, 75% off, a free book print to try out, etc.
My project was design- and text-intensive, so I needed a specific vendor to get my book finished. But if you just want to make a photo book, there are tons of options. If you have a Macintosh computer, Apple bundles Photos and a book-printing option as a default. VSCO has a super nice (and pricey) option. There’s My Publisher, MPix, Pinhole Press, and Blurb (my option).
You could go the professional publishing route, but chance are, if you’re reading this, that whole world is a mystery to you, too. And besides, who wants a box full of books gathering dust in their basement? Print on demand!
Print On Demand (Kind Of)
Speaking of which, I highly recommend print-on-demand services to keep costs and risk low. To a point.
Print-on-demand publishing means someone goes to a website or storefront and orders your book, and then it gets printed and shipped to them. This avoids the basement-book scenario. You don’t have to worry about inventory or unsold merchandise.
Now, I did it kind of half and half. I wanted an initial small press run of books delivered to me because I wanted to sign and customize them for the first batch of supporters. This involved a small bit of risk, because if I couldn’t sell that complete set of printed books, I’m stuck with the entire bill.
I had enough confidence to buy the initial batch, however, and once that runs out, I will send customers to the Blurb storefront to buy their on-demand copy.
Think of it as offering something special for your die-hard supporters, while still keeping the risk manageable. And through a service like Blurb, you can sell your book through Amazon, potential increasing your audience size.
Thinking About Your Audience
Who are you aiming for? What’s your customer base? Who would buy this thing you’re going to make? Who’s going to care?
It could be the marketing/communications professional in me, but one of the first things I thought about was my audience. I knew that if I photographed a large enough number of artists I could grow my audience base. How? Artists have friends and family, spouses, proud grandmothers, co-workers, etc. Each artist will tell their fan base, and word will spread.
Also, because my project was so community focused, the Jackson community itself became a target audience. If you care about Jackson, or you care about the arts community, you’re a potentially-interested person.
If you’re well-connected and well-known, this may not be such an issue for you. Your art may already have an audience. But if you’re a first-timer like me, this audience stuff matters. I didn’t want to make something and have it flop.
It also doesn’t decrease your artsy-ness by thinking about this kind of thing. If you make something great, and no one knows about it, and you want it to reach people, have you succeeded or failed? Or somewhere in between?
My project had a goal (increase awareness about artistic talent in our community), and so it had to have an audience that cared.
The M-Word
Marketing. I’ll start by saying that whether you like it or not, if you want your work to reach an audience, you have to have a bit of marketing involved. Sometimes, you have to be a megaphone.
For me, my marketing plan was comprehensive and multi-channeled. I used the website, Facebook, social media, email, and personal outreach to get the word out about Artists In Jackson. From there, the network effect kicked in. I had 15 artists who helped me reach a larger audience, and the artistic community took their message and spread it even farther.
I set it up in stages. First, I teased the project with a launch page and an email sign-up form. The artists knew what I was doing, but no one else did, so there was some mystery involved.
Then I published the About page on the website, and sent people there. “Look!” I said. “I have a project that I’m finishing up, and here are the basics!” That’s when the social media part came into play – I had something I could point to and share.
The landing page and about page helped me gather email addresses for my mailing list. These folks were the die-hards, the special ones, who bought in to the project. They got weekly updates from me, with little sneak peeks of the book’s progress.
From there, I published the Meet the Artists page to announce who was in the project. Now people could see faces attached to this project. I did this a week before the book launch to get people really talking. It helped with awareness, because this is the stage where the artists could kick their promotional messages into high gear.
And then it was a slow, steady rollout of the products: book pre-sale, book general public sale, eBook pre-sale, eBook general sale, magazine pre-sale, etc. This gave me a month of weekly promotional messages that gave people a specific way of supporting the project. The book begat the eBook begat the magazine. Boom, boom, boom.
I’ll add that groups like the local arts and cultural alliance and the chamber got word of the project and used their communication channels to talk about it. On and on it went, and the audience grew.
Why An Ebook and A Magazine
Easy: Affordability, and access. Not everyone can afford an $89 art book, so the magazine was a way for people to still enjoy a physical piece and saving some money.
It was a pain to layout the magazine. The size was different than the book, and it makes you reformat the pagination and design. But luckily the hard work – writing the stories, sizing the photos, etc. – was already done when I finished the book.
For the eBook, it was more of a way to experiment with the format. I had a chance to play with the iBook Store (and learn all its peculiarities and rules), which will help me on future projects. And I wanted a portable format for those on-the-go tablet folks.
As a multimedia professional, it just made sense to have different formats for Artists In Jackson. It increased the workload, yes, but I feel like it increased the audience size, too. Call it democratic self publishing.
Inventory and Mailing
My fear, as stated above, was that my basement would become a warehouse for these books. So while I split the difference and ordered some inventory, I kept it manageable.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) helped things by offering free mailing supplies (did you know?) and a great online service to order postage labels. It reminded me of the old days on eBay where you had to become a mailing service expert to move your merchandise.
I ordered 20 padded envelopes (free!) from USPS, and when a book order came in I’d buy a postage label, print it out, stuff the envelope with the book, and slap the label on. I’m lucky in that we have a post office here on the campus where I work, so I could just drop off the packages whenever I wanted.
USPS makes it easy to research shipping costs, too, so you know how much to charge your customers. This was vital – I had no idea what postage would be until I looked it up. Free envelopes, calculate the shipping, and send away. Really easy stuff.
Why USPS and not, say, FedEx? It’s totally political. I think our mail system should be run by the federal government, and I try to support the postage system – flawed and unfriendly as it may be – whenever I can.
Online Store
This was a fun part because I had the right e-commerce site. Gumroad is great to work with, and I got their name from @bleeblu after purchasing his eBook. Their markup is very reasonable, and I love the stats and metrics they offer. It became kind of addicting to see a new email from Gumroad pop into my inbox, telling me I just sold another book. It was very helpful to see where my sales came from (website? email? social media?), too.
For the eBook, Gumroad did all the hosting and handled all the downloading. They also make sending mail tracking numbers and receipts super easy. Gumroad is really made for digital goods, but I found they handled physical goods just as well.
For individual photo prints, I use Society6. They take care of all the printing and shipping, and I get to set my profit amount for each print. I don’t make much from prints, but I wanted to offer them to family members and the artists at an affordable price.
After my initial 25 book order runs out, I’m going to switch my online store to Blurb’s version. It’s not the prettiest, but it will serve my needs for those print-on-demand orders.
And everything – the project, the stores, everything – is hosted with grace and beauty by Squarespace. I can’t recommend them enough for creative projects and professionals.
What’s Next
Next, I’m focusing on getting the word out about the project, either through media outlets or art blogs. This is a step-by-step, methodical process: emailing contacts, submitting press releases, knowing who to get a hold of, etc. But I enjoy the work.
I’m also chatting with folks about hosting some events in town to bring the art and artists together. This area is totally out of my comfort zone. I am not an event organizer.
So I pulled in a few of the artists from the project who are experience in events (Hi, Kaiti and Colleen) to help me think through the logistics. Where to have it? Who to invite? Sell tickets? Have food? How to promote? Etc.
I’m also thinking about some speaking engagements, through local service clubs and the museum, to give some backstory on the project.
The big rush at the end of this year is to get the book in people’s hands and get the word out. In 2016, I’ll be focusing on the social and event aspects of the project.
Final Thoughts
Finally, the project was super fun, and a ton of work. It’s not just the photographing and interviewing that takes time. It’s the writing the profiles, editing the photos, sizing them according to the media, building the website, developing the marketing plan, designing the book – on and on. It was five solid months of hard work and late nights.
But. I’m super proud of how it turned out, and the feedback and support has been great. It’s also fun for me to do this stuff.
I tend to be risk-averse, both financially and in life. I didn’t want to go into this project blind and blow a bunch of money on something that I can’t recoup. Yes, risk is a part of any artistic project, but my ability to tolerate risk is low. So at every step in the project, I made sure that there would be creative and financial payoff.
At the least, I just wanted to cover my costs. This was not a money-making scheme. Far from it. If I calculated the time put in to the payout, I’m probably in the red.
That’s what a hobby is, though. It’s a big time and money sink that’s worth all of that as long as you enjoy yourself. With Artists In Jackson, I had the satisfaction of knowing that not only was I exercising my photography muscles, but I was doing something worthwhile for the community.
“I don’t like to be pushy with my art. If they want to come look, they can come look and bring their own viewpoint.”
Call Nicole Cure a natural. She never studied art, never felt like she worked hard at it, and even took a 10-year creative hiatus when her kids were born.
“I never worked hard at it. I was just born with a natural talent,” she says.
That talent is paying off now that Nicole runs a drawing and interior design business out of her home studio. She named the studio Ardis J Studio after her grandmother, Ardis Jane, from whom she inherited some of her artistic ability.
That natural talent does not mean Nicole doesn’t work hard on her sketches. She often spends 10 to 20 hours on each piece.
Her customers are now asking for more and more of her custom pieces and original work.
“It’s been fun and crazy busy,” Nicole says. “And I have more work than I thought I’d ever get.”
She says word of mouth is what works. After trying the art show scene for a few years, Nicole found it to be a slog, even if she got a custom job or two. Now, she’s called it quits on art shows, and her workload is still doing just fine.
Nicole works in her small studio in Hanover, which she built a few years ago as her kids went off to school. She found her basement studio cramped, and her handy father-in-law built it in no time flat. Nicole’s studio hosts little tots drawing lessons during the summer, where she teaches basic drawing techniques to first through seventh graders.
“It’s a blast,” she says. “You can usually tell within the first session if the child has a natural ability.”
For her work, Nicole draws inspiration from the world around her: kids, family, animals, and the rural setting. Customers ask her for lots of animal drawings, like horses and dogs.
“I think I’ve done every breed of dog 10 times,” Nicole says.
To experiment, Nicole dabbles in other creative projects, like furniture and interior design. The furniture thing came about because she likes to make her own pieces.
“I would rather not pay top dollar for anything. Furniture is really fun to me,” Nicole says. “I garage sale like bonkers. I love it – it’s a total addiction.”
In fact, if she were to do it over again, Nicole would concentrate on interior design work. She does a few projects here and there, using a style she calls “modern shabby chic,” but she really wants to redo an entire house.
“I use crazy colors. I just have an eye for it,” she says. “Like, my kitchen’s a bright teal. People wake up when they go in.”
Nicole’s kids have an eye for art, too, she says. Two may be better than she ever was. Take her oldest daughter, who draws all the time. Nicole calls her “phenomenal.”
Maybe there’s an art gene in there after all. Take a look around Nicole’s studio, and you will see four pieces hanging up created by her kids.
“It’s always related to nature, and silhouettes. I’ve had a love for silhouettes for years now. So when I realized when I put these two things together—bodies, hands, leaves—I was forcing myself to think outside the box. I wanted something that made you look closer.”
When Kaiti McDonough thinks of her photography, or life, or the artistic community in Jackson, she thinks in layers.
She started with art early, as a kid, crafting things with her mother’s materials. That, combined with her father’s love and appreciation of nature, makes her photography rich with depth and overlays.
Together with artists in The Singularity, Kaiti thinks of artists in many layers, too: experience level, professional or hobbyist, optimist or pessimist.
Even her career has taken on layers, from teaching to art curation to event planning.
Kaiti sees her main artistic outlet as photography. That started with a point and shoot camera in high school, posing friends in nature and getting lost on adventures. That all changed when she met Doug Jones. Could she do some live art photos for an upcoming show?
A digital single lens reflex (DSLR – the fancy ones with interchangeable lenses) later, and she was off making art.
Her style comes from, you guessed it, layers: double exposures, overlays, textures, blending one image into another. The idea came after she saw artists working on body paintings – making one idea on top of another. The photos do more than document a scene or a moment. They pull you in and make you think.
“It’s always related to nature and silhouettes,” Kaiti says. “I’ve had a love for silhouettes for years now. So I realized when I put two things together – bodies, hands, leaves – I was forcing myself to think outside the box. I wanted something that made you look closer.”
To achieve her style, Kaiti blends images mostly in camera, with a bit of Photoshop work.
“As soon as I discovered my camera had this option, I went to town,” she says. “This was it.”
Kaiti explores her creativity in other ways, too, like sewing and working with resin on wooden boards to frame her work.
Another form of artistic expression: working with other artists in Jackson and The Singularity to highlight the local creative community. Kaiti was one of the co-founders of The Singularity and has found her calling in organizing and marketing events. The idea of getting artists together and putting on a show – a hang-out session with meaning – was immediately appealing to her.
“I loved the feeling of bringing everyone together and doing something for an evening with all your friends,” Kaiti says. “Four and a half years later, I know what I want to go to college for. I want to know more about event planning and marketing while still working on freelance photography.”
As a fine art photographer, Kaiti recommends getting into local shows as they start, while they’re small and affordable. And to be consistent at getting your work out there.
“If you have a good product, and you can make a lot of it, get into small and big art shows – you have to keep pushing at it.”
She’s also optimistic about Jackson’s home-grown art market. With groups like The Singularity, the How Bazaar show downtown, and the growing collaboration between artists – as well as her own work to get more art in front of viewers – Kaiti sees it as a growth opportunity.
“Just seeing everything grow, artists being taken seriously, there’s a market for art,” she says. “There’s potential everywhere, in our artists and our city. Jackson’s so little, it’s growing right before our very eyes.”
“I realized very quickly that being a studio art major would be a lot of fun for the artistic side of me, but I still had practical parts of me that needed to know things about business and finance.”
Cassandra Spicer made art her business. And business? It’s pretty good.
Cassandra owns and operates Beads to Live By on West Michigan Ave. after moving from downtown Jackson. There, she sells beads, materials, and jewelry-making kits, and holds classes to teach others how to make jewelry.
Along the way, she’s found success in embracing the practical side of her artistic talents, from taking advice from local business owners and from years of building a knowledge base in her particular art.
The art part wasn’t always so clear for Cassandra. In college, at Spring Arbor University, she pivoted from a fine arts major to taking classes in business and marketing.
“I realized very quickly that being a studio art major would be a lot of fun for the artistic side of me,” she says. “But I still had practical parts of me that needed to know things about business and finance.”
Cassandra also found that she was too much of a social butterfly to sit in a studio alone, working on art.
That, combined with years of working at Bead Culture in downtown Jackson, helped prepare her to be the artistic entrepreneur she is. Now she sells beading supplies and teaches classes to enthusiasts, and that tickles the social part of her artistic nature. Running a business is a bit of an art, too, because there are always new people to reach and convert to the beading hobby.
It wasn’t a sure thing in the beginning, but Cassandra thinks running Beads To Live By (with her husband Chris) is what she was meant to do.
“I always felt led – there was a directional pull to open this business,” she says. “And every turn we took, a door opened.”
Cassandra doesn’t just do beads and jewelry. She keeps the creative part of her brain busy with artistic projects. She finds inspiration in the works of others, trending fashions, and even Moroccan influences.
“Seeing a pattern, or texture, or something in nature – it’s one of the ways I come up with a design,” Cassandra says.
And no matter how much she tried to get away — at one time, she was an admission counselor for Career Quest — she always came back to beads.
“It’s a gravitational pull,” she says. “Some kind of need. Everyone has that in life, whether it’s artistic or not, to leave their mark on the world. This is my way.”
“I’m making Jackson better, one tattoo at a time.”
It’s just that simple for Andy McCrory, owner and tattoo artist at Ye Old Skull Tattoo in downtown Jackson.
For one, he sees himself as a classical tattoo artist, preferring traditional American motifs and style. And second, Andy feels like tattoo repair work could keep in business in perpetuity.
“I see so many tattoos in need of rescue,” he says.
It was his first tattoo, at age 14, that got Andy started down this path. He remembers getting a small cross by a questionable character in a trailer, using a contraption that was the scariest thing he ever saw.
“I got in trouble for that when I got home,” Andy says.
That night, a teenage Andy went home and figured there’s got to be a better way. He built a tattoo machine there on the spot.
From there, he worked at Underground Ink in Michigan Center for a few years and opened up his own shop on the corner of Morrell St. and Brown St. soon afterward. Then he found the downtown location, on Mechanic St., and has run Ye Old Skull Tattoo there ever since.
No bones about it: When done right, Andy sees tattoos as an art form.
“My customers are allowing me to put my art on them,” Andy says. “That’s flattering. It’s like putting my name on their arm.”
His style comes from a background in graphic arts and screen printing, combined with comic books, horror movies, and dark art.
“If I got to do what I want to do, it’d be skulls and crossbones for everybody,” Andy says.
If you want an opinion about tattoos and come-lately tattoo artists, Andy will readily volunteer a few. He calls tribal tattoos a “waste of black ink and real estate.” He doesn’t cater to trends, like dolphins and (lately) watercolors. And he doesn’t think just anybody with a few art skills should be doing tattoos.
“You can draw anything on paper, but skin is not paper,” Andy says. “Everyone thinks they can do it with a machine from the pawn shop. It’s a slap in the face of us guys who have been doing it forever.”
Andy doesn’t just do tattoos. He’s what you call a creative busybody. Like when he took up painting, just to try it. Or when he sings in a band. Or tackles rebuilding his ’51 DeSoto Spartan Coupe and ’94 Harley-Davidson FXR.
“I don’t sleep much. I need a lot of hobbies,” he says. “I have excessive creative energy.”
Jackson is a good town for all that artistry, Andy says. There is plenty of opportunity, and it’s easy for someone to find their niche.
“Say what you will about this town – I’ve made a pretty good living,” he says. “Not many artists really make money on art. No one buys it until they’re dead. Tattoos aren’t like that.”
“It feels good to have my stuff out there, and get the reaction. And even the not-okay reactions feel good.”
Jason Felde owes a big “thanks” to his wife, Stephenie.
So does the art community in Jackson. If it wasn’t for her, we may have never discovered Jason’s creative work.
The story goes that Jason never publicly displayed his work outside of small shows or at school. Then Stephenie stumbled on Jason’s portfolio, hidden away in a closet, and did what any good, enterprising wife would do: she started showing the portfolio around.
“It was one of those things where I had the support of my family, but no one took that extra step of pushing me farther,” Jason says. “I don’t think anyone wanted to kick me in the butt a little bit harder. So that’s where she came into play. And it’s been a snowball effect from there.”
The work garnered a positive response, and things started to happen for him. A show here, a call from Doug Jones there, and before he knew it — and after some more prodding — Jason was a public artist.
Jason’s artistic side was there from the beginning, he said, from scribbling in notebooks on road trips to art classes in high school. Now, his work draws on many styles and techniques, including painting (acrylics and watercolors), inking, and sculpting.
Since Stephenie “discovered” him, he’s attended eight to ten shows, and he’s often approached for more.
“It feels good to have my stuff out there and get the reaction,” Jason says. “And even the not-okay reactions feel good.”
Jason also works on commission pieces. One of his first was a pencil sketch of a friend’s grandfather. After seeing the piece, his friend’s mom sent him a thank you note.
“It was really cool to know that my work can touch people in that way,” he says.
Jason’s work touches people in need, too, like the cancer fundraising organization Twist Out Cancer. The organization pairs artists with cancer patients to create art based on their stories, with all proceeds going to cancer research.
Closer to home, Jason says Jackson’s creative community is very supportive of its home-grown artists.
“I have yet to come across an artist in Jackson that isn’t willing to promote you,” he says. “Or they’ll buy a piece.”
Visually, Jackson offers a lot of inspiration with its varied landscapes, quiet spots at the parks, and history. As an artist, there are lots of ways to draw inspiration.
“To be able to go somewhere like that to relax and create is amazing. I think Jackson is visually stunning,” Jason says.
Jason is working to get more of his work out in the world. He’s participating in more shows, trying different techniques, and exploring other artistic subjects.
Right behind him, Jason’s wife Stephenie is working, too.
“She has no problem volunteering me for art shows and projects,” Jason says.
“I’m just excited that he actually wants to show his work,” Stephenie says.
“They said, ‘You do have a style. You’re messy!’ My acrylics are really wet and all over the place, and I’m always covered in paint.”
Art, like life, can get messy.
That’s precisely what painter and mixed media artist Colleen Peterson loves about it. Besides being a creative outlet, getting creative is great stress relief.
“It doesn’t matter what I make, as long as I get my hands dirty,” she says.
It often starts with a blank canvas, which – for Colleen – is a scary place to start. Random bits of inspiration help her to get started: feelings, requests from customers, random items she finds.
Like the time she got creative with her boyfriend’s homemade beer bottle labels. Or the time she took a broken coffee pot and turned it into a piece.
“I didn’t realize I had a style until someone told me,” Colleen says. “They said, ‘You do have a style. You’re messy!’ My acrylics are really wet and all over the place, and I’m always covered in paint.”
Colleen dabbled with art in high school and liked it. She made comics, and even thought about fashion design and interior design as outlets. It was The Singularity that put her paintings in her first show.
“All I had was random stuff I made,” Colleen says. “I enjoyed it, so I just did it.”
Some of the emotions behind her pieces are messy, too, like the first time she ever sold one of her works. It was heartbreak that helped her make it.
And heartbreak that came after she sold it.
“I didn’t want to sell it,” she says. “I cried.”
Now, Colleen works mainly with custom pieces and requests, like the wedding centerpiece she worked on while we talked. Often, all she needs is a bit of direction to un-blank that canvas.
“One person I just had, she really likes peacock feathers, and she wanted purples,” she says. “So I made her something really cool that’s probably one of my favorites I’ve made in a while. And she was really stoked. It felt good.”
Colleen is big on customers being able to afford her art. She wants more people to come to Jackson art shows, too, and to help spread awareness about the arts community in town.
“There’s always people saying ‘There’s nothing to do,’ but all these other people are working really hard to put on a show,” she says. “It’s one of the most frustrating things to me. Support your community!”
She loves seeing the art community come together and seeing her fellow artists develop their talent.
“There’s a lot of people that complain about our town, and then there are people making it beautiful.”
“Art is the communication of feelings. If what you’re doing isn’t evoking a feeling, then what you did is arguably not art.”
Jake Perry says it was God’s plan all along that he’d end up where he is now: a videographer for Radiant Church, on Spring Arbor Rd.
He gets to live a creative life, both at work and on personal projects. His work at Radiant fulfills his need to accomplish something for a greater purpose. And his personal projects fulfill him creatively.
“I have this mix of purely creative stuff that may or may not see the light of day, but at least I can be creative for creativity’s sake. And then for this job, I get to be creative and have it make a difference,” Jake says. “So having those two together is pretty sweet.”
Jake’s work at Radiant started because a friend of his got a job at Radiant Church in Kalamazoo and suggested he apply for the videographer position. Jake didn’t get the job, but he did meet the future pastor of the Radiant Church, Mike Popenhagen, who was headed to Jackson. Now, he’s Mike’s assistant, helping promote the church, shooting video announcements, and taking photos of events.
“I get to see the smallest things I do matter to people,” Jake says.
For side projects, Jake helps as a director of photography for Cinema Grove, working on short films and documentaries.
The way Jake sees it, artists are merely a prism through which they interpret God’s will.
“Creative people are more sensitive to communicating with what’s already there and unlocking it,” he says. “Art is the communication of feelings. If what you’re doing isn’t evoking a feeling, then what you did is arguably not art.”
To communicate those feelings, Jake likes working with the basics of image-making.
“I love light, period,” he says. “Being a cinematographer, it’s important for your whole life to be light and shadow.”
Taking inspiration from music, architecture, and photography, Jake pictures himself as a storyteller and uses the stories around him to express himself creatively. It starts with people.
And people, he says, are what make Jackson’s creative community so special. They’re not competitive, and they’re willing to learn and grow together.
“It’s a community that’s not a bunch of sharks with blood in the water,” Jake says.
But Jackson tends to view creative work in a skewed way.
“Jackson is a place that doesn’t value creativity as much as it should, even though it’s ripe with it. And that’s sad,” he says.
Jake stays in Jackson because he feels like God has a plan for him here, and that Jackson may not be done with him just yet. He learned that when he tried to get a job out of the community.
Jackson, as it does so often with others, pulled him back. That’s when he learned to trust God’s plan for him.
“As soon as I did, things made sense and started to fall into place.”
