BY GINNY PRIVITAR
Jennifer Leonard, the artist by the lake, as her Facebook site states, is self-taught and has taken no formal classes. She describes herself as always creative, but said she really started pursuing her own creativity when she was about 30.
“I started doodling and drawing in sketch pads,” she said. After amassing a collection of her own art, she began showing at the library. She worked extensively in pen and ink and still does, now mainly for illustrations of clients’ homes. Pen and ink can be unforgiving, but Leonard said, if you make a slip, you find a way to work it into the drawing.
Leonard got a job teaching acrylic painting at Wine and Design in Warwick three years ago and describes it as a freeing experience. She said it got her out of her comfort zone.
"I was doing things I ordinarily would not do and was challenged,” said Leonard.
Instead of what she calls her “free-style hippie art,” she was doing things that were more structured.
Born in California, Leonard moved to New Jersey, settling in West Milford 13 years ago. She lives on Pinecliff Lake with her son, Jesse. In college she studied sociology and education, but says, “I’ve had such a crazy career path. Over the past 30 years, I have done so many things.” Especially when it comes to art.
Right now she’s into custom art wood signs. She’s created a street sign for Sloatsburg, N.Y.; signs for a hiking trail and a farmers market in Tuxedo, N.Y. She’s also created a sign for Merchants Wares, an auction house in Ringwood, where she works part time.
Now she travels with her art on weekends to farmers markets and street fairs. She makes signs with amusing sayings.
“They can be a little obnoxious but most everyone that walks by gets a good laugh, especially (from) the one that says, 'Ask a teenager, they know everything'," Leonard said.
She also does custom calligraphy for clients.
(My art) “Changes with whatever’s going on in my life,” Leonard said.
She did paper-tearing and created flags from torn paper. Now she’s into wood burning (pyrography), using a super-heated tool with different tips, and painting on wood as well.
“I thrive on change,” Leonard said, “but now I have more roots.” And she likes the freedom to pursue whatever interests her.
Leonard related an early experience that brought home to her the need to create her own art, instead of what others might expect.
“I had an art teacher when I was 11 years old telling us what to draw," she said. "The teacher would say, ‘No, no, that’s not right.’ And she would take my pencil and fix it — alter my art - what the hell, man? It was too perfect for a 10 year-old. I knew it wasn’t me. It was tweaked by my art teacher. So I didn’t like taking classes.”
She's not a fan of coloring books either.
“Coloring books are the biggest culprit in squelching creativity,” Leonard added. “You have to stay within the lines.”
Leonard works at other things besides art and the auction house. Presently she also helps Neil Thiede, a one hundred-year-old man in Hewitt, to live independently; she goes grocery shopping for him and takes him for his haircuts. “The elderly need companionship. He’s 100 and all his friends have died. He does have phenomenal neighbors, too,” she added.
Leonard received awards for a life-size wooden bear that she painted for the West Milford Centennial Parade and for a five-gallon drum — now at the pump track — that she decorated for the West Milford beautification project. She also received a ribbon this past May at the Wallisch Homestead art show, for a wood-burned rendering of the homestead she sketched on a piece of found driftwood. Every year, she donates several pieces of artwork to tricky trays to help out local schools.
Leonard also loves to create in the kitchen and passed along this recipe that she found online. “Here is the delicious, refreshing summer recipe that can be tweaked according to what veggies or fruit you prefer,” Leonard said.
To learn more about Leonard and her art, email rudybird2766@yahoo.com, go to jenniferleighleonard.com or find her on facebook: Artist by the lake.