Jay Senetchko

June's featured speaker is the celebrated realist painter, multimedia artist, educator, and storyteller Jay Senetchko who will generously share his personal story of creativity through the lens of the global theme PATTERN.

Jay Senetchko is a storyteller, who uses his representational narrative art as a vehicle for social commentary and criticism. He is most easily defined as a painter, although he situates his practice in a broader material context and process, which includes photography, digital media, sculptures, performance and installations. His spectacle-based exhibitions are an effort to insert fine art back into the social fabric by engaging the public at large, not only the academic and invested. In Senetchko’s primary medium of oil on canvas he operates as a figurative realist creating narrative-based paintings and metaphorical still-life. His subject matter, featuring elements of his personal history, contemporary life, topical subject matter, and historical references exposes his interests in theory, history, politics, and contemporary concerns. Through these vehicles it is his intention to comment on and critique the present, reveal historical parallels, provoke thoughtful approaches to the future, and to integrate art and life.

As usual, we asked Jay a handful of probing questions to give us a deeper glimpse into his life and relationship with creativity:

How do you define creativity and apply it in your life and career?

Everything is relevant. I don’t separate the 3…they are always informing each other. Creativity to me is a constant mindset, rather than a space I have to be in to create. It’s the way I approach the world, my career and my life. There are no parts…only the whole, and I try and pay attention to everything, so that everything is potentially food for that creativity…that way of being.

Where do you find your best creative inspiration or energy?

"All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking.” — Friedrich Nietzsche. My last 4 bodies of work have all been conceived while hiking. The time and isolation give an opportunity for ideas that have been accumulating throughout a period of time to settle into something that resembles a direction I might want to follow. The time takes what are seemingly disparate parts and starts to distill them into a whole.

What’s one piece of creative advice or a tip you wish you’d known as a young person?

Creativity is a habit and skill that you can develop like anything else. It requires time and openness to cultivate, but you don’t need to wait around for it to happen…you can just get to work.

Who (living or dead) would you most enjoy hearing speak at CreativeMornings?

I think I’d like to hear anything that Michelangelo or Nietzsche had to say…the first because of the environment and people he was surrounded by, and the second because he hated everything about the environment he was surrounded by…but was incredibly
positive about art and creativity.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done?

Become an artist. It’s not for everyone…and I at least should have read the fine print.

What’s your one guilty creative indulgence?

Booze. It’s almost always around while I’m working.

How does your life and career compare to what you envisioned for your future as a sixth grader?

Well…at that age I wanted to be a long haul trucker…so quite a bit.

Who has been the biggest influence on your life and what lessons did that person teach you?

It’s not one person…although some stand out more than others. In general
though, friends, family, colleagues and romantic partners. The most important
lessons that all of them have given me in one way or another is that they are
the most important things in life. Art is just something I do in comparison.

What practises, rituals, or habits contribute to your creative work?

I’m going to talk a lot about this. Walking a lot…and tricking myself into being less analytical by creating problems for myself.

When you get stuck creatively, what is the first thing you do to get unstuck?

I don’t really…I just start…there’s always something there…something I’m
thinking about, wanting to do. Then I figure things out as I go. I work through
problems as they arise I guess…but I don’t know if that’s the same thing.