Artist Profile

Jessica Salinas of JLeigh Designs creates clever mixed media pieces. She frequently uses different textures and materials to create her work. Each piece is a handcrafted original. She explains more about her work in her own words.

-What inspires you?
There are so many things that inspire me, that’s why my art is pretty diverse and even eclectic. Often I am inspired by the details, rather than the object as a whole. I will stop and take pictures of random textures that I see and I have even started tweeting (@jleighdesigns) them on a regular basis, almost daily. I have directly incorporated these pictures into a couple of pieces.

-What’s the best thing about what you do?
There are two things that I love the most about what I do. One is encouraging people to open their eyes and look at things from a different point of view or, “stop and smell the roses”. The other is inspiring children to get creative and then maintain their creativity as they get older.

– What’s the best part about selling at Pop-Up Market?
I love getting to meet so many interesting people. Like at the first Pop-Up Market in April, I had a wonderful conversation with a couple. I learned more about one of the flowers that I happened to depict in one of my paintings. It just added even more to my experience and to my artwork.

– What’s the most unique thing you’ve ever re-purposed.
Probably the most interesting item was a plate that went to an old meat grinder that belonged to my grandmother. Complete with real rust, not painted or chemically induced rust, it fit perfectly into a steam punk inspired piece I created called Time Travel.

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