Renaissance Woman: Irene ‘Jenny’ Pickens

Jenny poses with one of her original works.  Photo by Johnnie Grant

Local artist gains recognition one stroke at a time.

Picture taking a bare canvas, and dominating it with every curve from your extremely talented hand. Imagine fusing rich, bold, and colorful acrylics together to make masterpiece after masterpiece. Picture leaving those who view your portraits, quilts, and pottery mesmerized by your skill. Picture Irene “Jenny” Pickens.

Fresh from an impressive showing as the designer of the graphic image for this year’s Goombay Festival, Pickens says she has been receiving positive feedback from the public despite her obscure profile. “Since Goombay, the response from people has been great, but a lot of those people didn’t know I was a local artist,” she says.



Unlike
most, the staffs at the YMI Cultural Center and Artistic Ventures did
know her work and featured it in their galleries. Those appearances
garnered Pickens attention from galleries across the state, such as New
Bern’s Picture That Gallery 2. Pickens appreciates hearing hearing
objective points of view: “The thing I like about these [out-of-town]
shows is that people that you don’t know critique your work.” she says,
“They will give you their honest opinion.”


Pickens’ paintings have also been featured locally by several business and organizations, in murals and logos.


While she’s glad
of the attention, Pickens is driven by her love for her craft. “My love
for art is in everything I do. It allows me to be creative with things
I encounter everyday,” she says. Art also serves as her cathartic
escape at times. “When I have things on my mind, I take my frustrations
out that way. [Painting] takes me to another place,” she said.



The youngest of
three siblings, Pickens was raised by her grandparents in a house
filled with creativity. “My family members were singers, entertainers,
artists, and great cooks,” she says. In that environment, it didn’t
take long for Pickens to develop her own flair for the creative. “My
grandmother would always say you wake up with a crayon and go to bed
with one. I drew big houses with flowers and a big yard, and then I
learned how to draw faces by looking at my sister’s magazines.”



After working
with known artists such as Tommie Lee Robinson, Lorelle Bacon, and
Hilary Burke, Pickens graduated from drawing houses in crayon and
making doll houses from cardboard to painting gorgeous acrylics and
creating portraits using the difficult stipple method. While some
artists prefer oil, Pickens like acrylics because of its no-fuss
versatility. “I use acrylics because it is easy to mix with and if you
make a mistake, it is easy to correct it,” she said. She likes the
stipple technique because it is the dots, not the lines, that create
the picture, a challenging feat in Pickens’ opinion. “It is a lot of
detail,” Pickens says of the stipple method.



Pickens has
faced another challenge common to many artists: gaining attention from
more area galleries. “I had studio space in the River District a year
ago, and we would do studio strolls twice a year,” Pickens recalls.
“There were some local gallery owners that would send postcards of
interest, but their interest ended up fading.”



The studio
experience only reinforced Pickens’ desire to share her work with all
of Asheville. There are three paintings she hopes to work on in the
near future, all of which hold a great deal of sentimental value for
the artist. “I would like to do a painting of my mother,” Pickens said.
“I only have one picture of her and I remember her for her wigs.”



Pickens would
also like to paint a portrait of famed poet Maya Angelou. “She’s so
inspirational and she speaks from the heart,” Pickens says of Angelou.
“She knows everything that she is talking about, from our history to
respecting yourself.” Pickens also said that she would like to visit
Africa to paint some of the men and women there.



As for what is
next for this gifted artist, Pickens wants to expand the limits of her
creativity. “I am in to sewing. I sew tote bags and I would like to
incorporate my drawings into them,” she said.



Blessed with a
natural gift that took years to develop, nurture, and refine, Pickens
is an artist in the truest sense of the word, and she has no problem
inspiring those who want to follow in her footsteps. “Teaching arts and
crafts to kids of all ages and seniors is what I give back for having
this God-given talent,” she said.



For those who would like to contact
Jenny Pickens or have more information about her work, she can be emailed at [email protected].