Amanda Jenkinson-November Artist Spotlight

The fine arts faculty chose Amanda Jenkinson, 19, to be the November artist spotlight.

Jenkinson is an artist pursuing an Associates of Fine Arts degree here at Green River College. She has lived in Auburn her whole life. After getting her AFA she is going to transfer to Western Washington University where she is thinking of becoming an illustrator.

Jenkinson has been drawing seriously since her junior year of high school when she took her first actual drawing class. Before then she would freehand Pokémon drawings but has since moved on from this.
Her favorite medium to use is graphite and recently has been drawn to oil pastels. She finds oil pastels to be new and interesting.

Both of her parent’s support her interest in drawing for which she is extremely grateful. She has a younger sister, 17, who also is an artist. They often bond over artworks of their own and artworks of others.

Jenkinson can easily see herself as an artist in 10 years. She wouldn’t like to be a freelance artist because there is little structure. She would prefer a structured job possibly illustrating children’s books or working for Disney.

Everything to Jenkinson is inspiring. She often finds inspiration from her sister’s artworks. She said it is very much like a symbiotic relationship.

Jenkinson prefers her work to be very detailed and have a lot of thought put into the piece and that is the same for her preference of art to look at when at museums. Her favorite pieces to look at while at the Seattle Art Museum are the Renaissance paintings. She finds the artist’s attention to detail pleasing and inspiring.

She has taken a plethora of classes in the 3 years she has been attending GRC. Currently she is taking ART 180 which is a class specifically for building a portfolio of all of the student’s artworks.

Jenkinson has never had a professor twice. She believes that it is helpful to have a variation in teaching. It encourages her to see the different perspectives of each of her professors.

“You soak in all of that professor’s little quirks and I just want the whole shmorgishborg” said Jenkinson.

Her first year on campus she was a first-year running start student and a fourth-year high school student. At the time she felt regret like she was missing out on too many events that her other classmates were participating in at her high school.

Upon looking back at her first year on campus, she no longer regrets taking courses here and now has an appreciation for her choice.

Jenkinson’s advice for beginning artists is “don’t focus on finding a specific style” and “get outside of your comfort zone” Jenkinson said.