Professional Artist

Jackie Griswold is as a mixed media collage artist who has dabbled in photography and jewelry design over the years. As much as possible she uses up-cycled and recycled materials including paint, paper that she has hand decorated, found objects, ribbon and lace, alcohol inks, stencils and stamps, glitter glue, vintage books and music sheets, and bits and bobs of ephemera that most people might not consider as art materials.

To elaborate, she begins by hand decorating paper with stencils, stamps, crayons and paint in order to bring in original papers to her work. She then might paint the substrate, which is usually wood (often recycled). Then she adds layers of paper using a gel medium to adhere the paper. As she goes along, she keeps adding layers, sometimes covering up previous layers to create texture, adding in bits and bobs of ephemera (old postage stamps, sheet rock tape, the bumpy side of cardboard, acrylic skins) and continue layering. She uses different types of medium (pumice, paper, bead) to develop additional texture and depth. She also might stencil or stamp on the layers. Most layers use extra heavy gel medium to create a "faux" encaustic look. She also uses alcohol inks to add depth and color. Typically, she works in series, creating works that "fit" together.Because her work is abstract, the designs evolve as part of the process of 'gluing paper to canvas.' She likes to combine colors that might not seem to go together and add a variety of elements to create interest.