Jodi's Bio

I’m incarcerated at Perryville, the women’s prison in Arizona, and I’m appealing the life sentence I was given. (See Justice4Jodi.com to find out more about that.)

Today, I continue making art and sharing it here, where you can acquire some of it for yourself, or just peruse and read my blog.

To learn more about my lifelong love affair with art, please see my expanded bio below.

Thank you for visiting!

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EXPANDED BIO:

When I was two and three years old, I would climb out of bed, make my way downstairs to the master bedroom and wake up my mom, who loved sleeping in. She would set me up in the living room with cartoons, crayons and a coloring book, then go back to sleep.

I scribbled in my book, intermittently entranced by the colors I could put on paper, and by Tom chasing Jerry or Wile E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner. Some of the darker crayons looked the same. I couldn’t read but I distinguished them by they’re colored wrappers. It seemed like magic the way purple or blue became so vivid on the page.

In kindergarten, I loved painting. But the teacher, kind as she was, told me to stop and go do other activities when I didn’t listen to her directive to not mix the colors.

By age twelve, my parents had taken notice of my interest in visual art and enrolled me in an after-school art class. This was the best classroom I had ever entered up to that point. Instead of handing out textbooks and assigning homework, the teacher passed out art supplies.

I was thrilled to take art as an elective in middle school. The period for art class fell between math and science, an oasis in the middle of the day. The art teacher was a Vietnam veteran who enjoyed working on his own projects alongside his students. He understood the fickle nature of inspiration and allowed me to continue working on a poster-sized bulldog I had been rendering in charcoal while much of the rest of the class moved on to make papier-mâché masks.

My family and I moved to Yreka, California, the summer before I started high school. Art was not available as an elective to freshman students. This class was so high in demand that I would have to wait until my sophomore year to take it. When I finally enrolled, I was assigned to the first period class. I could not have designed a better way to start a day of school. I think if I had to relive every morning for the next thousand years by starting each day in that class, I would call it paradise.

When I was sixteen, my grandmother gave me an old collection of oil paints and brushes that had been gathering dust. She was not a painter and I never asked her how she came by those or why she saved them, but sometimes I like to think it was destiny. I sat at her kitchen table and brushed some musty-smelling yellow ochre paint onto a thin sheet of printer paper, having no idea how oils worked. After several minutes, a ring of grease had formed around the pigment as if I had dropped some oily cheese there instead. Grandma said I needed canvas.

I was taken to an art store an hour away in Medford, Oregon, that exploded my narrow artistic vision: Michaels. My thinking had been so small that I never imagined such a place. (I had a similar rewiring experience the first time I walked into Barnes and Noble, but that’s another story.) At Michaels, I found canvas in sizes both tiny and huge, racks on racks of brushes, and colors I didn’t know could exist in paint. I earned money working part-time at my dad’s restaurant, which enabled me to start with a few canvas boards, a small set of brushes, and a little can of paint thinner.

I might have enjoyed attending art school at a college level. I had heard of schools in San Francisco, Seattle and Boston that sounded legendary, but I never believed I could get into any of them because of my poor grades in high school. Nor could I see myself succeeding in an art career. The “starving artist” stereotype begat nightmarish visions of sleeping on random couches, unable to afford rent or a tank of gas, much less a mortgage or children. I chose waiting tables and tending bar for the short-term security of leaving every shift with cash in my pocket. But even as a career server and bartender, I still found myself struggling to pay rent or a mortgage, and even found myself crashing on the occasional couch that did not belong to me.

I found photography as a kid, and though I lacked the equipment to produce refined work, I had fun photographing friends, pets, and my toddler siblings. In my twenties, I purchased better photo equipment and began building a portfolio of weddings and portraits. I enjoyed editing images that enhanced a couple’s recollection of an important shared rite. As I began booking more weddings and receiving referrals for other engaged couples, I started to see a creative outlet through which I could generate a viable income.

Then, I completely derailed my life. When I went to jail, I stopped thinking about art for a while. Grappling with what I then thought was the end of my life, I focused very little on creativity. I drew my sister’s portrait and sent it to my mom, but for a time, I drew nothing else. I began drafting a memoir I never finished with ideas of turning it over to my family or legal team, then killing myself. Eventually, the months turned to years and I turned to art again. The women in jail would sit for me and I practiced drawing their portraits. Sometimes, I practiced on their skin by giving them tattoos.

Many of these women had already been to prison and were back for another round. They regaled me with stories of the myriad art supplies that would be available when I got to Perryville, the women’s prison in Goodyear, Arizona. They spoke of art shows hosted by the prison for the public, and programs that fostered artistic pursuits. Compared to county jail, Perryville sounded like Disneyland. I didn’t tell them I had no intention of making it to prison.

A few years in, I wrote to my brother from jail and asked if he would list my drawings on his eBay account. He agreed, and I began sending him my work. At first, only a few pen pals responded to my then-feeble marketing efforts, but their support helped me with commissary expenses. I often felt hungry in jail, and my family could do little to financially support me, an adult who should have been feeding herself.

When my art began to gain wider public recognition, eBay banned it on the grounds that I was a felon. Despite plenty of felons running successful stores on that platform, and random opportunists using it to exploit me by making a buck on a postcard I may or may not have written, I was prohibited from earning an income there with skills I had worked all my life to develop.

So I started my own online store and art gallery right here at ArtbyJodiArias.com. This is a space where I can share my art with you and where you can acquire some of it for yourself, or just peruse and read my blog.

I came to Perryville after six and half years in county, despite having wasted much of that time ideating my own demise. Some people think suicide is the coward’s way out, and maybe in some ways, it is. But I know it takes balls to kill yourself because I was never able to work up the courage to do it. And I’m glad I copped out that way. I’m glad I lost my nerve and waited just one more day, every day.

Today, I am light-years from that destructive mentality. With distance comes perspective, and the horrors I have overcome have deepened my appreciation for a life I once contemplated throwing away. Now, I want to be present for every moment, read great books, and spend time with people who love me in spite of my pervasive flaws, annoying idiosyncrasies, and innumerable mistakes. And I want to create art. This latter inclination — compulsion, really — has been the common creative thread throughout my entire life.

Every morning, I wake with gratitude and the intent to be mindful, to savor the freeze-dried coffee in my plastic cup — and to make art. Because when I’m making art, it feels like my soul is saying, “Yes!” This is not in English or any verbal language, but more an internal symphony that I want to keep playing on repeat. Of course, a lot of mornings do not unfold with this kind of inspired momentum. But having these goals enables me to course correct, and I know: Creating art is the course on which I should be. It always has been.