About Jimiyo

I work primarily in cardboard sculpture, with a current focus on animal busts and wall-based forms. By layering, shaping, and finishing the material by hand, I use cardboard to push something familiar and overlooked into a more sculptural territory.

I’m drawn to cardboard because it has both structure and texture, but also because it never fully hides what it is. It carries its own material history. I like that tension between the ordinary nature of the material and the stronger visual presence it can take on when built into form.

Animal forms keep returning in my work because they offer silhouette, personality, and presence. They give me a way to think through character, surface, pattern, and shape while making pieces that can function as both art objects and focal points within a space.

My broader creative history includes other mediums, but sculpture is where my newer explorations have led. Recent work will be featured in a June exhibit at Blue Ridge Mountains Arts Association.

HISTORY

Before the Dream

Sometimes when you graduate college, you don't get the job you want. My first job wasn't in art. I sold Dell computers in a call center. At night, I painted portraits to build my portfolio and keep moving toward the work I wanted to be doing.

PORTRAITS

My First Art Job and Then...

The work paid off. I landed a job designing NASCAR T-shirts, and that opportunity opened the door to a longer career in art and design. Over time I won contests, became an art director, and eventually took on a broader, more all-encompassing role within a online startup company.

APPAREL

Dreams Lost Luster...

“Midway upon the journey” of my life, I left art and took a long detour through caregiving and healthcare. I became a certified nursing assistant, volunteered in hospice, and returned to school for prerequisites and a Master’s in Occupational Therapy. I worked as a hand therapist for less than two years, but the path kept me away from art for about seven years before I found my way back.

Cats? Yes, Cats...

At some point during school and COVID, when time blurred for everyone, I tried to make my cats Instagram famous. That era led to a lot of cat art, including one illustration that ended up getting bootlegged by a fashion designer.

CATS

Oldest Dream

In retrospect, the simplest dream I ever had was not tied to a job title or professional role. It was simply to be free to create. Cardboard is familiar, unglamorous, and a little absurd, which is part of why it feels right. Making sculpture from it feels like an expression of that freedom.

SCULPTURES