Living the Dream

Jennifer Main's first lesson in the joy of creating art, and the subsequent pain that comes with giving it up, came when she was in the eighth grade.

Teachers had put up some of Main's drawings at school, and one even offered to purchase the young artist's chalk pastel of a panda hugging a little boy.

"But I was terrified to get rid of it because it was one of my first real pieces of work," Main recalls. "So I went home that night and I tried to copy it the best I could, and I kept the copy and sold the original for $35."

"Well," Main continues, smiling, "I'm over that."

In fact, it was only a few years later that Main, while still in high school, sold her first painting professionally -- and, presumably, less agonizingly -- and officially kicked off a career as a successful artist.

Main was born in Dallas, but moved to Las Vegas when she was about 6 when her father, then a controller for now-gone Sunworld International Airways, was transferred here.

Her earliest artistic influences include her grandmothers, who, Main recalls, "would paint with me when I was little. That's when I was fascinated with it: Wow, you have a blank piece of paper and it's turning into something else.

"So I had an interest in it, a little love for it, but I didn't think of it as a job choice or a career choice until later on."

Art was Main's favorite subject in school, and selling panda-with-boy marked, she says, "this little, first inkling that, oh, this is so cool. I could get paid money to do what I love."

Main made her first professional sale at the age of 17. By then, she had become determined to pursue a career as an artist and decided to not go to college. That, she admits, "freaked out my parents a little."

Her parents countered that Main should find a gallery to represent her to "find out if you have what it takes."

Main and her mother visited Art Encounter in Las Vegas. Owner Rod Maly agreed to take on a few of Main's pieces.

Her work was "unusual," Maly recalls, "and we were very successful with her. She had a gift and she was top-notch.

"We sold probably 200 of her pieces in the very first year. She was very successful."

Why? "First and foremost, her art reflects, I think, her feelings about things," Maly says. "It shows a young woman's life and kind of reflected that. It was solitude. It was romance. It was humor. It was a little bit of everything.

"And, her work was colorful, and it was kind of Picassoesque," Maly continues, in that a viewer could make out of a piece "what you wanted, which is good and which was unique. I'd never seen anything like that before. She had just an extremely unusual style."

"She paints from the heart and she's got a great eye," says Maly, who still works with Main. "That's why she's been successful."

Main's success at Art Encounter was "exciting, as a high school student," Main says, and signaled to her that "wow, I could have a future doing this."

Main has studied art at both Las Vegas Academy and briefly at the Chicago Institute of Art. But Main says her strategy was to allow herself "no out, no backup; I have to do this or else."

Now, at 29, Main's resume is solid, although there have been challenges. "(With) economic changes and 9/11, people weren't spending money to buy art. But overall, it's just been growing ever since, kind of finding my way," she says.

Main describes her style as "figurative abstract," with "maybe a touch of expressionism." But "whatever is going on, I try to be fairly transparent (about) what's happening with me, and I put it on the canvas."

Music and musicians are recurring themes, as are women and couples and icons that include angels, winged hearts and skulls. She counts Picasso as an influence, as well as Keith Haring for "the colors, the bold line," and Frida Kahlo both for her work and "her life story."

"She got to be well-known as a living artist and for having a good career while she was alive," Main explains, laughing. Kahlo employed symbolism, as Main does, and "had a dark element to all her work, and I like playing with that -- yeah, the colors are happy and everything, but a lot of times there's a much deeper or darker thing on the other side of that."

In comparison with her early work, Main says her work retains a recognizable style but has a more "refined" focus.

"It's just grown up in its own right. I also have much more of a message and story behind each piece, where I think when I started out I was painting just to paint. Now, every piece has a purpose."

As an artist, Main figures she's "definitely more bold, and just putting it out there, whether it's something that's very personal to me or whether it's a belief or whatever.

"I try very much to communicate something. Before, I might have had a secret thing I was inspired from, but I wasn't gonna talk about it much. Now, I'm not really that worried about saying whatever it is."

"Artwork is like journal pages on a piece of canvas. It's like baring our soul," Main says. "I do enjoy the risk of it, and there's a bit of excitement about starting conversations with other people.

"I share my story and they say, 'Oh, this is what I got out of it,' and I love when we're either relating on the same page or we're off on totally different subjects. But that piece of art, I love it that it starts that communication."

One of Main's biggest surprises over the years has been in discovering how much business an art career involves.

People imagine "you're probably just sitting around painting all day," she says, "and I'm like, 'I wish.' I'm here regular hours, like a normal job, 10 to 6 every day and longer usually, and it's meeting to set up shows, it's planning and putting applications through, it's traveling. It's amazing how fast that time goes."

Fortunately, Main enjoys the art of the deal, too.

"I've always had that kind of in me," she says. "Even when I was little, I was a shy little girl but I still had a desire to sell things I created. So I used to make little greeting cards and sell them to the neighbors."

Main even is exploring other avenues through which the public can see her art. Buyers who, for example, might not be able to afford her originals -- which sell from several hundred to several thousand dollars -- might opt for a print that she has hand-embellished or even a set of note cards for $12.

Main also has illustrated a children's book and has had her work appear in a nationally published calendar. And, she's exploring licensing arrangements for "some high-end, cool products."

"Others might consider it selling out, but I don't see it like that," Main says. Rather, it's about "if you have a message to share, you're able to get it out in a bigger way."

Meanwhile, Main recently moved from a gallery/studio space in downtown Las Vegas to a new studio and gallery at 5333 Arville St. One of the benefits, in addition to the light and airy space: Her husband, Jason Steiner, has his motorcycle customizing company right downstairs.

Elsewhere, Main continues her charitable work -- valley Boys and Girls Clubs and the American Heart Association's "Go Red for Women" campaign are among the beneficiaries -- and admits she's amazed that the artistic gamble she took at 17 seems to be paying off so well.

"Yeah, since I was 17," Main says, shaking her head and smiling. "Kind of crazy. Doing art."

She laughs. "And in Vegas, out of all places."

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.