Featured Artist Spotlight....Wysiwigs!!!

I met Jen through the Etsy group, Fabulous Artistic Moms (FAM) and have been a big fan of her and her shop since. Her store, WYSIWIGS, stands for What You See Is What I've Got (Smile o:) and offers an assortment of crafty goodies. From amazing prints of her pencil sketches and original origami art to notecards/ACEOs and awesome woodburned earrings. Her talent is endless and her sense of humor leaves me in stitches. It's always fun *hanging out* with her in the Etsy forums. For even more information, check out Jen's profile.

Okay...now here is more information about Jen. I asked, she answered!

MJ: How long have you been creating/designing? When did you first learn you had a creative side?
Jen: I've been drawing since I was big enough to hold a pencil. I started kindergarten at age four; about the time I started asking my parents for a horse. All the other little kids were drawing stick people and I was drawing horses with ridiculously long manes and tails :o) I guess my sketching evolved from there. On the crafty side, my grandmother had a bunch of friends over every week to make something specific as a group, like a beaded Christmas ornament for example, and she always let me do one too (I loved it). The origami started just last year while I was recovering from reconstructive surgery - I've been addicted ever since.

MJ: What is your inspiration to create? What is your motivation to succeed?
Jen: I don't think I can classify inspiration any other way than Divine. Something will just catch my attention and I "just gotta" draw it or make it. How else can you classify creative things that just pop into your head from nowhere? I don't know that I have a motivation to succeed precisely; more like a space problem and financial issues (I HAVE to sell some of this stuff so I can go make something else and buy more supplies, you know? :o)

MJ: When you are not working on your craft, what are you doing?
Jen: I am a full-time interpreter for a deaf student in high school as well as running a private operating foundation (a pending 501c3) with nine horses and a 4-H leader (we stay kinda busy around here...)

MJ: Do you belong to any groups on Etsy?
Jen: I belong to the FAM (Fabulous Artistic Moms) Street Team - which is the most amazing group of women you'll ever meet; and also to EFA (Etsy for Animals) via my other shop EPICFARMS.

MJ: What is on the horizon for you? New products? Etc.?
Jen: I don't know what tomorrow will bring, I've learned to take things one day at a time (cancer causes a definite attitude adjustment). I am just now getting back to the life I left behind a couple of years ago - well, actually maybe its more like running to catch up to it! I was just released from treatment in May of this year (yay!)
I will be adding more photo prints, cards, and magnets (I have a friend that is an awesome photographer) to my Wysiwigs shop soon and there is a set of pastels staring at me from the dining room table...I'm still afraid of them, though. I've opened a second Etsy shop to help support the foundation - I think I mentioned it earlier. We also have a foundation website; EPICFARMS which I am learning - the hard way - to build (oy :o)


MJ: Share one thing about you that you think would surprise people.
Jen: I hate soda, coffee, AND tea. Isn't that awful? (I am, therefore, forced to seek my caffeine in solid form...CHOCOLATE - that part probably isn't surprising though :o)








Check out Jen's Etsy Shop.... WYSIWIGS.