Hello and welcome to the 71st 3 Art Questions With Jackson interview! This time I interviewed the super talented realist painter Karin Jacobs. I love her art and she was really nice when I met her at the Northrup King Building. I've really liked following her career and I very much enjoyed her answers. I think you will too. Thank you for reading! (All images courtesy of the artist / Instagram: @karinjacobspaintings)
Jackson: Do you feel you were born to be an artist? Or did a specific event put you on an artistic path?
Karin: First, thanks Jackson for selecting me for 3 Questions. I've followed you and your work for some time now and I'm honored to be included in this series. I don't know if I was necessarily born to be an artist but creating was very much part of my identity when I was growing up. My siblings and I were always drawing, making little rooms out of shoeboxes, and putting on plays. I know there's one in every classroom, but I was that girl who would draw a horse for anyone who asked. In college I had a double major in English and Art but was too self-conscious to even think about a BFA and showing my work. I ended up in the nonprofit world then had kids and spent my spare time volunteering; I had few creative pursuits of my own. Finally about 15 years ago I signed up for a painting class at the Minnetonka Center for the Arts and was immediately obsessed. It honestly felt like coming home and I'll be forever thankful I decided to take the class. Still, it took participating in the WARM Mentorship Program to really feel like I might call myself an artist. I was 55 before I got my own studio so I would say to anyone wondering that it is never too late. Now I couldn't be happier with my studio in the Northrup King Building among such a wonderful community of artists.
Jackson: How did you find your specific style of realism? Your way of painting is very unique.
Karin: Though I'd like to experiment more with different types of painting, I think I gravitated to realism because it just fits best with how my brain works. My first subjects were things I knew - old family photos, our animals, the local landscape. At some point I decided to see if I could capture the plastic nature of a life-size fiberglass horse and found I loved figuring out the subtle color changes, highlights and shadows necessary to give a figure gloss and dimension. After that I went on the hunt for smaller plastic figures, mainly toys, most from the 1970s and older: these cheap mass market objects can be a good reflection of what was valued at that particular time. Sometimes the objects I paint are quite small, and I enjoy that can occur when they're painted many times their original size. Visitors to the studio sometimes comment on the spookiness of the human figures especially, and when someone gets a laugh out of a piece there's no greater compliment.
Jackson: If you could meet any artist living or dead, who would it be and why?
Karin: This was a really hard question because to be honest I get anxious at just the thought of meeting famous people! At museums I definitely gravitate to the painters and there are any number who I'd like to hang back with and watch work. That said, in the end I chose Cindy Sherman, whose work just seemed so exciting to me when I was a college student in the '80s and is still. Though my understanding is that she would rather her work not be viewed as feminist art, a woman can certainly view it and project her own thoughts on the various roles in which Sherman presents herself. I can only imagine the experiences she must have had making her mark in the male-dominated art world.
