A Founding member of Lakeshore Artist Guild, Jill Iverson is one of the driving forces behind Art Slam in downtown Manitowoc, September 15-16. A Manitowoc resident, Jill loves “her town” and recognizes that there are many creative people living here. “Art Slam is a way to bring people together and to reinvent our town. A number of our downtown business owners are finding their own way to participate, filling our downtown with Art, Music and Poetry.”
As a young person, Jill’s ‘place to belong’ was the high school art room; as a young adult, Jill studied Fine Arts at Art Institute of Chicago and Southern Illinois University where she specialized in drawing.
Jill is Co-owner and leather artist, with her spouse James, at Erik James Leatherwerks, which was recently featured on Around the Corner with John McGivern. “Leather can be colored, shaped, tooled and stitched. Making long lasting things that people use everyday and that improve their relationship with material objects is a passion of ours at EJL.”
James has been a filmmaker & photographer, which was his course of study; he will be using photography to tell a story about Manitowoc. In 2010, Jill and James were invited to join other artists to shoot a roll of film on the streets of Milwaukee, during a 24 hour period, and make a photographic piece to complement “Street Seen: The Psychological Gesture in American Photography”. The local artists’ work was shown in the Calatrava wing of the Milwaukee Art Museum, augmenting the Street Seen exhibition. Their involvement in this project was part of the inspiration for Art Slam Manitowoc.
For the inaugural Art Slam, Jill is planning on working downtown and in her nearby home studio. She’s hoping to do something “new to her”, something spontaneous maybe a 2-D piece on iPad or in leather. Part of the excitement is deciding and planning, which she may be doing on her favorite place to do art – aboard her sailboat on the Great Lakes. “Living on or around the water is always inspiring. Manitowoc truly is a place that is imbued with good spirit. Both James and I are moved by living along the lake near a working harbor which has a long maritime history.”
Contemplating why she does art, Jill says, “I make art because it’s fun and I have a need to use my head, heart and hands. It’s also a way of communicating with, and about the world, which transcends many boundaries in a way the written or spoken word cannot.”
She has also found that when she is drawing and making art regularly, she looks at the world with different eyes.
You can find Erik James Leatherwerks online presence: www.erikjamesleatherwerks.com/collection-leather-goods/
