Jackie Allen

“Creating is what I was born to do!”

I grew up in southwestern Virginia, in the Cumberland Mountains of Appalachia.  As a daughter of a coal miner father, I found my artistic interests had to take a back seat in public school because no art classes were available, nor were there funds for extravagances for personal art supplies.  So, too, when I attended college.  Although I did take some art classes, I found that the time needed to fulfill the requirements of the work scholarship that I’d been granted precluded any ability of my catching up with my peers.  However, as a teacher in Fairfax County, both in the public school system and in a private school, I found ways to utilize my artistic abilities. In addition to individually practicing my art, I was assisted by several art classes which I took at a studio in Occoquan, VA and at the Torpedo Factory in Alexandria, VA.

At one point I decided to stay home and raise my children.  It was then that I came to the decision to teach art to children, ostensibly, as one mother, persuading me to do so, said, “I don’t care if she never learns to draw or paint.  She just needs to cultivate a good self image of herself.”  As a result of that child’s success, I received so many referrals from the mother that I began to teach art at my home, and later at a framing shop in a neighborhood shopping center.

Primarily a recreational artist, I use whatever media that works for the project at hand. To that end I use acrylics, gouache, water color, charcoal, pen and ink, and both oil and soft pastels on surfaces that include canvas, primed hardboard, cork or watercolor paper.  So as to give a timeless quality to a soft sculpture, I like to use vintage fabrics,  to include cotton, linen, wool, lace, and silk, as well as leather, fur, and human hair.  I paint the faces with acrylic paints.
You will find my art, like poetry, is meant to be experienced and leaves much left unsaid.  The rest of the story is left up to you, the viewer, to contemplate.

Jacqueline D. Allen
jackieallen22153@aol.com