An Inspired Chat with Jessica Lily of East Metro-Atlanta

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Jessica Lily. Check out our conversation below.

Jessica, a huge thanks to you for investing the time to share your wisdom with those who are seeking it. We think it’s so important for us to share stories with our neighbors, friends and community because knowledge multiples when we share with each other. Let’s jump in: Are you walking a path—or wandering?
For the longest time, I was completely lost in the proverbial woods. Maybe even for almost all of the time, or at least since my early twenties when I ventured into wedding photography, fully aware I was settling.

I did not know what else to choose, what other path I could possibly take. There was no obvious answer, no, I wish I had done this, instead. I was wandering. Not aimless, still searching, still an explorer of myself and my truth, but not aligned and not on the path, my path.

Still, I could feel its pull, a constant nag that I was not doing the thing I knew I should be doing.

And then sometime after I turned 40, it found me. I was thrust, almost violently, into a full commitment and full love. Once I saw the signpost, it was fully and wholly unavailable. I could do nothing else but begin painting. The level of hunger I found was painful, constant and utterly a need.

I moved mountains in my life to allow myself to embody the artist I suddenly woke up and realized I had always been. And now, gratefully, I am wholly on a path, and for me, for now, it is my path.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Hey y’all!! I am Jessica Lily, lover and memory holder of gardens, light and the grounding elemental pull of watercolor paints. I paint large garden paintings, Garden Portals, that invite you to get lost somewhere between saturation and wind, rain and teardrops, pressure and elegance. My large works all teach me something as I paint them, and I name them after the metaphor I discover in painting them. My newest work, Shelter, in the Cosmos, is about holding a safe space to allow ourselves and each other to live into our truths and shine our inner-light, our brightest truth. A knowing that we are stronger when we grow together. In a literal sense, it is two cosmos flowers, windswept, one sheltering, the other full on, shining.

My smaller works are almost always lesson plans to paint together in community. I host local classes here in metro-Atlanta, and am currently building an online course curriculum with Red Point School, a watercolor school available world-wide.

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
Some of the ancestral trauma that I arrived to this world with was all encompassing as a young child. In the people that came before me were histories of substantial abuse to the women in my lineage and of cultural wounding. Being a human in a human world and human body can be so, so hard for all of us.

As a baby, I was diagnosed with a failure to thrive. This is something that I have carried with me for my whole life, and one of my great life’s battles. Would it ever be possible for me to thrive, as a woman, as someone who has so often been an other?

And now, as an artist, I finally have moments where I feel like I am thriving and feeling aligned with my purpose of creating, and teaching others to be open to their own creative muse. I certainly still experience struggles and setbacks, but it is forever certain that it is possible and I am capable of thriving.

Was there ever a time you almost gave up?
As a working artist, I have to give up a little bit every few days. The only way to move forward is to allow myself to take risks, and to follow my muse into the unknown. Sometimes, the journey is a great teacher and I am never opposed to accepting that a painting should be let go. I always work a painting until it tells me it is done, because I have gotten all that I can out of it. In the literal sense, this looks like making adjustments, sculpting volume, value shifts, and color play. In the metaphorical sense, I am listening to the work I am building to see what it is teaching me about my life, and about our great natural world.

If those markers are complete, and the painting is done with me, I then decide if I want to celebrate where it took me by sharing it with my community and collectors. It is very possible that the answer will be no, and I will give up on that work. I will let it go.

That constant failing is a great constant renewal. It offers me freedom to move, and I am so grateful for that great balance.

Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Is the public version of you the real you?
This is something I experience in duality, embodying both sides at once. I am a classic over-sharer. I am someone who often finds myself 3 sentences in further than I am really comfortable with. I am openly honest about myself, my experience and my goals. What matters to me, and what I know about the world. I want to live my life as authentically as I can, and want to show up for others in the same way.

This was not always the case. About a decade ago, I stopped wearing makeup. I realized and became hyper-aware that I was masking, uncontrollably and compulsively. Not only literally in my face, but also in my social and professional life. I was a wedding photographer, and lived a public facing life that was carefully guarded and highly professional. This was quite in antithesis to who I really was, which is a playful artist, highly creative and neurospicy. I stopped doing that career, and slowly began the process of learning for myself who was underneath that mask.

Now, in my forties, I have started to embrace makeup again – and even to embrace intentional masking. So, most of the time, yes, I am my true and whole self. And sometimes, I am not up for it, so I choose who I want to be at that moment.

Before we go, we’d love to hear your thoughts on some longer-run, legacy type questions. Are you doing what you were born to do—or what you were told to do?
Yes! And my great migration into that role has been such an empowering journey. I came from doing what I was told to do, and fought my way to discover what I was born to do. I am and have always been an artist, I just needed to allow myself to live into it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jessica-lily.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessica.lily11/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JessicaLily11/