Jay Rolfe: My Story ... my journey From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso

Don't you just love the future Jay Rolfe's projecting for himself? I do!

I liked to draw, color, and paint until a 3rd grade art teacher turned me off to art by insisting I do everything exactly her way. In college I discovered I loved art history. After my university degrees I took up painting. It was fun! Then I made what I thought was a “rational” decision not to be a Starving Artist, and instead work for a steady paycheck. That turned out to be the unhappiest decision of my life.

I raised a family and had a wonderful life, except that in my profession I was unhappy. I tried lots of different things to find something I loved. I became obsessed with finding “what I really wanted to do when I grew up.” The answer kept coming up as painting, but I resisted and rejected the answer because of my fear of being a Starving Artist.

When I finally realized my passion was painting, I knew I needed to do something a little different, to find my unique artistic idea. After much soul searching, one night I had a vision of my unique artistic idea. In the light of day I didn’t know if I actually could create my artistic vision because I’d never done anything like it. But I decided that whatever gave me the power to envision Jay Rolfe's unique artistic idea would give me the power to create it.

That morning I went out and bought lumber to build a 3-D stretcher frame, canvas, canvas pliers, staple gun, paint, and brushes. After a lot of trial and error, do-overs, and persistence, I created my first large stretched canvas painting with six inches of depth and an identifiable shape. I knew I’d found my passion!

I love creating monumental size paintings – big size, big impact – of familiar subjects with a 3-D stretched canvas that hang on the wall and stick out from the wall in an identifiable shape. And I love bright colors and use them whenever I can.

That was another step on the journey of Jay Rolfe From Starving Artist To 21st Century Picasso. You can see some expressions of my unique artistic idea on my website at http://www.3dssc.com/.