Debra Jones shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Hi Debra, thank you so much for joining us today. We’re thrilled to learn more about your journey, values and what you are currently working on. Let’s start with an ice breaker: What are you being called to do now, that you may have been afraid of before?
I have been retired for quite a few years, and that means I have been able to pay the necessary bills on a very few commissions and my limited income. BUT…. With the major changes in the economy, I am forced to go back to work.
I have been a full time professional artist, specializing in portraiture, people and pets, in all media. Where I live we have access to a free gallery! Free. The option is rather dizzying but I did not need it, until recently.
I mounted a one woman retrospective of ONLY WOMEN and over 100 pieces of all sizes and shapes. Anything that would hang on a wall. At that time I realized the lack of interest in the community of the gallery where I live is even bigger outside. Pretty much only the families of my models and fellow residents came.
I have watched others, just put on shows and hope they come! It is not happening.
My first job was with a marketing company (SO many years ago…) and things have changed a lot.
I am painting, somewhat fiendishly, for another one woman show in January but I have dedicated my spare time and energy to promoting a Holiday show and trying like mad to get the locals involved. It is daunting. I thought I was through with all that jazz, but my plan is to keep growing visibility for the space and hopefully get real clients for my work in January..
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am known as a portrait painter – pretty much all 2-d media – specializing in watercolor, oil and drawing. I work small and began by painting the pups in a local dog park in 2008. Remember 2008? It was the start of a very great recession. I set up and painted from photos take over the weekend, small and many different breeds. I called it Caesar Milan marketing -no talking, no touching, no eye contact – and people got used to seeing me and slowly warmed and asked what I was doing. I was getting many new clients and selling the pieces of their own pets to them. Small but they produced a nice little income. It branched to online and I started my http://dog-a-dayartblog.blogspot.com in which I DID a dog a day for over a year. Newer pieces, predominantly watercolor, feature other animals and a few people.
I also am a western artist.
This year I was again accepted into the Mountain Oyster Club Art Show in Tucson. It is fun and great visibility. The club is a cowboy country club, started because the gang had dirt on their boots and the other country clubs did not want their membership! So they started their own! It is an invitational and I have been invited for easily 10 if not more years. Because of the style, I do a LOT of this sort of subjects. I was with a gallery or two a while back. One in Jerome AZ suggested that cowGIRLS would sell. The other in Scottsdale, wanted Buffalo. I had begun doing my Tincup pieces – splashed coffee on smooth watercolor under charcoal drawings of cowboys – and it suited both galleries. That is when my western blog began http://picturesmithjones.blogspot.com. I also have a blog for polo and some fox hunt work featuring horses https://studio-caballo.blogspot.com I seem to put a blog together every time I switch my subject!
In January I will have produced over 20 new oils that I will be calling NO FRAMES, I hope people understand I do not feel like a decorator, and I have explained to my clients that they know their own décor and I hate to have them skip an piece because the frame just wouldn’t look good in their living room…..
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What’s a moment that really shaped how you see the world?
I will say I have always had a relatively good ego, knew I had a talent, but not sure for what!
I went to art school and have an AA degree but always thought I was getting an education to get a job! I my youth I was great at drawing or painting what I saw but never had a real creative imagination about it all. For a while I even gave up. I could paint around up to the envelope edges but not really produce art with my “voice”.
My mother financed these two careers, as an artist in art school and then years later she helped me get the license to do nails, saying it would be something until I knew what I wanted to be when I great up. It took some 20 years before I finally came to the realization I DID NOT want to be in the beauty biz!
I was doing a pedicure on a notoriously bad pair of feet and listening to mall music when I realized nobody I associated with really understood who Dvorak or Degas were. That it was almost ANTI what I was. I found open studios to attend and when I made more money doing art than nails, I quit!
Another artist once told me perhaps I was not suited to portraiture, if I was so invested in my own work I could not produce what the client wanted. That was the day I realized what my “Human Camera” style of art was good for and I also found the creativity was in the flattery! The ability to listen, which I had honed for years, would suit me here. From then on, I figured out my niche in the art world.
When did you last change your mind about something important?
I gave up showing in my gallery because I became a tenant of Artspace when promised a community of artist would were bound to cooperate and listen to each other’s needs. As often happens, the strong personalities pretty much took over and we who hoped to do it somewhat differently were pushed aside.
I had the chops and a fat enough resume to be a help but was on the outs. Many of the better artists here, found outside venues and gave up on our gallery. So did I. But some new blood inspired me to use the space we were given as a perk. The years of covid pretty much scared off any community support and friends would do month long shows with maybe 10 outsiders visiting. It was sad.
My first show did not even have prices. I did have a book with all pieces listed and prices but nobody looked at it. I wanted to introduce myself to the community here and outside our walls.
A year later, and a huge rent increase, make me rethink my part in the neighborhood.
I am working hard to produce a show before mine of holiday items, made by our artists, and smaller and affordable. I have the gallery for a month and it is pulling teeth to get the artists involved. I am trying to feature our residents who want to be, and see if I can get the interest in the gallery, not on any high traffic street, limited parking and a lot of earned apathy from the neighbors. THEN me. I swore last time this was the end, but now I am in the fray again!
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What are the biggest lies your industry tells itself?
So many young artists, and I am calling the people who produce actual, touchable, art. Not digital. (That is a whole new world for me. I can relate to the tangible stuff.) So many of these artists starting out, much like actors, believe they have not arrived until they are selling big pieces at big auctions. I wish more of our industry understood how hard it was to simply make a living, much less a name in the industry. A working artist is one who has not given up but looks for that one set of buyers, places to sell and can create enough work to eat regularly! I do not know how many seminars I got on setting up business plans, not how to reach your market. I have been appalled at how many artists with degrees do not know the first thing about writing grants, or putting together artist statements. The minimum business chops to be producing art.
Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. If you knew you had 10 years left, what would you stop doing immediately?
huh. I am really lucky to have a touch of arthritis in one knee but in great health otherwise for my age. Let’s give me those 10 years and I am going to answer this backwards. Because I was able to retire for a few years, I must admit, I found it very daunting. I had very little purpose. Not at all sure what to do but read books, watch tv and … well nothing!
Suddenly realizing the income I used to make was almost equal to the retirement income, I started doing sketch groups and reviving skills that had not been used. I also found the more I did, the more I wanted to do. I recently enrolled in a community collage life drawing class and have been learning an entirely different approach to life drawing.
I will be in the Mountain Oyster Club show, I am in an online show called Wings, International entries with the top 100 showing. I am waiting for the jury announcement for a local theater with a lobby show and have volunteered to demonstrate at a K-9 charity with a gift certificate donation, later this month.
SO I would say, if you had only 10 year, do MORE. Do not stop doing what you used to do and love. It will keep you young and the more you do the more you will find you can!
Contact Info:
- Website: jonesportraitart.,com
- Instagram: picturesmithjones
- Facebook: djstar
- Other: https://dog-a-dayartblog.blogspot.com
https://picturesmithjones.blogpspot.com
https://petrifiedair.blogspot.com
https://azloft.blogspot.com
Image Credits
All images ©Debra Jones 2025
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
