Illustration by Jamie Corley
Artist Jamie Corley’s digital illustration “Once I Hosted a Dinner Party and Only Served Cheese” captures a longing that so many of us have had over the past year and a half. Part of her Gathering collection, the inviting tablescape, in shades of pink, purple, and blue, is a reminder of an everyday act we often took for granted before the world shut down.
“Creating this collection reminds me of the joy of a simple meal shared with family and friends or the ritual that can make even a solo meal feel like self-care,” she says. “I started cooking and baking a lot during the pandemic, and I’ve really enjoyed photographing various meals and tablescapes for inspiration for future works.”
Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Jamie Corley
Corley never imagined she would end up a full-time artist. The 34-year-old, who grew up in St. Louis, started out in politics, interning at the White House in 2007 before spending a year studying at the London School of Economics. After graduating with honors from Southern Methodist University with degrees in history and communications in 2009, Corley spent seven years in Washington, D.C., as press secretary to U.S. Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee. She describes her artistic journey as “not a straight line but rather a wandering wave.”
Tell us about your process and the media in which you work. I have two distinct mediums. The first is digital, which is where I paint, using Procreate, a digital illustration app, and then I print them as fine art prints. I have my pen, I have my iPad, and I draw. I consider myself a colorist, so painting with the iPad when you have an infinite amount of colors is incredibly challenging, but with a lot of practice, I can get a color to the exact tone and shade that I want. I did paint for years, just in acrylics.
How did you start creating art? I am the person who used to say, ‘I can’t draw a straight line.’ I really didn’t think I got the artistic gene. My grandmother is a 1949 graduate of the art school at Wash. U. and is a fashion designer. We would sketch together, and I think I definitely got an eye for color from her. I always appreciated art, and I started to go to museums more while I was in D.C., and there was this huge art studio in my neighborhood. I needed something to help me unwind, so I started taking a painting class just for fun. It was like I lit a passion on fire.
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Photography Kevin A. Roberts
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Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
When did your art change from a hobby to a career? When I was 27, I had a tumor on my spinal cord, and I had to come [back to St. Louis] to have neurosurgery. I was in the neuro ICU for five days and had a two-month recovery. I couldn’t work. It was like starting over. When I was recovering, I remembered reading about Henri Matisse, who, at different points in his life, when he had illnesses, that was when he had his most prolific periods. So I started playing with paintings in my bed. I thought, I can’t go back to politics. I was physically not able to get back to that schedule again, and I was ready for a change, so I moved to California and started painting around the clock. That’s when I started my website and people started asking for commissions. Ever since, it’s been a primary source of income.
How did you transition from traditional painting into the digital medium? Three years ago, my dad had a stroke and I flew home to help for a couple weeks. When I was going back to San Francisco, I bought him an iPad so we could FaceTime, forgetting that he couldn’t really use it after his stroke. I took it with me instead, and as I was looking at apps, an ad for Procreate came up, so I started using it. It mimics painting so well. You can use charcoal or oils or watercolor, and you have to know the properties of them to be able to use them properly. My skills in color theory have advanced so much from using it. Sometimes I even sketch with the iPad first if I’m doing a painting just to see how the colors are playing together. Digital allows me to perfectly take what is in my head and put it on a piece of paper.
Where do you find the inspiration? I’ve always been drawn to drawing female figures; I think the female figure is so beautiful. I also love skeletons. I have a bit of macabre to my art sometimes. I like the playfulness of taking something like bones and painting them in pastel colors. A bone reflects so much light; it’s really fun to play with that. I’ll get inspired by different things. I did a series on the American West. I did the tablescape series because I like the idea of gathering. Sometimes I just let myself play and it’s a one-off.
What brought you back to St. Louis permanently? The pandemic. I came back in August 2020. The fires [in California] had gotten bad, and I was living in a tiny apartment with my 8-month-old puppy. I felt trapped, so I put the dog in the car and came home. I started to look at houses because I wanted to nest and have space. I had lived in tiny apartments for the past decade. I was looking all around U. City and found this house. It was amazing and had the perfect studio space.
How has designing your house helped fuel your creativity as an artist? The process of decorating a home is extremely creative. It works the same side of my brain as painting does. I take it room by room. I am extremely methodical in how I sketch and design. I think that art has really helped me with composition, which in interior design would be scale. It’s so similar, the whole process of taking an idea and putting it into the physical world.
