Meet Jessica Lily

 

We recently connected with Jessica Lily and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

I used to think that confidence meant being the best, so that’s what I tried for. I strove to be the best student in art class, always tried for all A’s, and was generally reliable. A classic overachiever, I was committed to always giving my 110%. As a result, my professors trusted me to hang shows or design gallery materials. I worked hard, and people generally liked me. I thought that was what I needed to feel whole.

However, behind the gold stars, I was struggling and was hiding parts of myself I was ashamed of. In college, I was quietly dealing with the early symptoms of a chronic genetic condition I didn’t yet understand. I had intense anxiety, and I was self-medicating. Eventually, one of my professors, someone I really admired, found out and cut ties with me. I was heartbroken. Inside, I felt that if people really knew me, they would walk away.

It took decades to unlearn hiding myself, and is something I continue to unlearn everyday.

Today, I try to live good health first. I try to listen to my body and often have to build extra rest into my day to meet my body’s needs where they are. Greater than that, I live with my truth in tact. I’ve spent the last twenty years taking off that mask of perfection, allowing myself to be seen not just for my strengths, but for my humanity. This is where my self-esteem is rooted now. I am not flawless, I am real. I am curious, I am strong, I am aching and I am worth it. I am a valuable human, just like every other valuable human.

In my 40s, I returned to art fully committed to the work, and to making it from a place of emotional honesty. My Garden Portal series of paintings seek to balance on that bridge, of being both as beautiful as I can muster, and not excluding the painful parts. My paintings hold space for those who meet them where they are. My paintings remind us all that we are allowed to take up room. We are allowed to shine, to dim, to shadow, and to thunder.

Confidence for me is deeply rooted in self-trust. When people spend time with my work or take a class with me, I hope they leave with more of that for themselves.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m a watercolor artist, teacher and creative guide based just outside of Atlanta. My current body of work is my Garden Portals series, which features immersive floral paintings that act as visual thresholds. My work explores the emotional and symbolic language of plants and light, as metaphor for our terrain traveled as women. They are spaces where beauty, grief, joy and transformation are all welcome to co-exist.

What makes my work special is their deeply relatable themes around womanhood in our current world. I use the language of plants and light to explore complex emotional experiences and polarized expectations placed on women. In transforming the age old symbology of the flower as woman, with new perspectives, I am seeking a more whole experience for our shared feminine experience.

My current focus is on expanding both my collector base and my teaching practice. I’ll be at juried markets and exhibitions this Fall around Metro Atlanta, and am continuing to expand my online and local watercolor class offerings, especially for people who feel creatively blocked and want to connect with their inner creative muse. I believe art belongs to everyone, and that making it can be a deeply healing practice.

If you’re curious, you can see more of my work and join my mailing list at www.Jessica-Lily.com. I share first access to new classes, early collector previews, and your invitation to all of the fun art events I am involved with online and around town.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Looking back, the three most impactful qualities in my journey have been emotional resilience, self-trust, and a willingness to try again.

Emotional resilience has helped me to weather the seasons of rejection, invisibility and debilitating illness. I’m continually learning that struggle does not mean failure. Instead, I learn, and learn again, that it often means transformation.

Self-trust has been harder won. Real confidence came when I began listening to my own rhythms, truths and needs, and responding to them with care and love.

And finally, a willingness to try again. So much of my artistic path has been non-linear. I returned to painting in my 40s after a long break, as a completely different person than I had been before, with a readiness and a need to connect, and to hold space.

So here is my advice, for you and for me. We don’t have to have it all figured out. We can travel one step at a time and focus on nurturing ourselves, and being realistic with our needs. Pay attention to what feeds us energy, what gives us life. That is the path.

How would you describe your ideal client?

The collectors and students that align with me and my work tend to be emotionally curious, thoughtful and deeply drawn to beautiful things that are also simultaneously truth-telling … and sometimes, they just love flowers, and are inspired by stunning reverence to detail. They are mesmerized by the way light lives in space, and want to bring that magic into their homes. My students are often women who are navigating transitions, healing, or coming home to themselves in some way. Many of them tell me that my classes feel like are a place where they feel seen, comforted or reconnected to parts of themselves they had put aside.

Whether they are drawn to the symbolic realism in my Garden Portals series, or the gentle and supportive way that I teach watercolor, what connects us is usually a shared respect for growth, curiosity, and self-expression.

An ideal collector or student does not need to know anything about art! But, they do need to suspect that the creative spirit is enormously valuable. Art making and living with art, especially art that celebrates and centers us on our natural world, can be a path to living more fully alive.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

©2025 Jessica Lily

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