Meet Tracy Jones, Contemporary Artist and Designer in Downers Grove

Today we’d like to introduce you to Tracy Jones.

Tracy, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I had two high school art teachers in Indianapolis, Mr. James Doversberger and Mr. Paul D. Sinclair, who were instrumental in forming me into the artist that I am today. I always loved to draw as a kid, but I didn’t really take art too seriously until I was in high school. My junior year we took a field trip to The Art Institute of Chicago, and we also visited The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It was then that I realized I absolutely had to attend school there. At the time, I had no idea how competitive it was to get accepted into the school. Back in Indianapolis, I told Mr. Sinclair that it was my dream to go to school there, but it was way too hard to get into and also way too expensive. I will never forget what he told me: “Let’s concentrate on building your portfolio first, getting you accepted next, and then we can worry about how to pay for it later.” I went home that night and wrote “The School of the Art Institute of Chicago 37 S. Wabash Ave. Chicago, IL 60603” on a small piece of paper and taped it above my bedroom door. Every time I looked at it I told myself, “You will go to school there.” It became my mantra. I applied to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago a little after the beginning of my senior year of high school. This was the only college that I applied to. I was confident—maybe too confident. Almost two months later, after my application was reviewed, I was invited to attend their Immediate Decision Option Day, where the faculty reviews your portfolio on the spot and tells you right then and there if you are accepted or not. This was definitely the most nerve-racking day of my life, but I was selected as one of the 500-plus students who would be attending the school in the fall. 112 S. Michigan Avenue would be my new address as an incoming freshman, and I WAS ECSTATIC!

After receiving my Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts in 1998, I accepted a job with the advertising firm Leo Burnett, in Chicago. I started in the mount room, where I worked mostly on new business pitches, creating presentation boards and model mockups for potential new clients. This was typically a one-year minimum program in the mount room that groomed you for what was ahead in the advertising world at Leo Burnett. It wasn’t uncommon to work 24 to 26 hour days. Whoever could fashion the best bubble-wrap bed to nap in while you waited two to three hours for a large format printout to be completed was the big winner of the night (the speed of technology has definitely advanced since then). I disliked the job so much, mostly the long hours that I worked as hard as I could to earn the right to be placed into a production design group. I was also waiting tables at the Hard Rock Cafe to make ends meet. Three months later after being hired, I was promoted into the new business group as a production designer. While at Leo Burnett, I met two senior-level creatives, Scott English and Victor LaPorte, who took me under their seasoned wings and taught me everything I know about design today. They were huge mentors in my life and still are to this day. Scott and Victor left Leo Burnett in 2006, and in 2007 they started their own agency, SCOTT&VICTOR, where they sometimes pulled me in to help with design projects. I had mostly studied printmaking and painting at The School of the Art Institute, so to be taught the skills of design by these two professionals was an amazing experience that I will forever value. I worked at Leo Burnett for almost ten years before leaving and then jumping around to several small design firms in the city for the next seven years. After less than one month of working for one particular small design firm in Wicker Park, I was let go. This was a huge blessing in disguise. My wife was teaching at the time, so I took the summer off to spend time with her and our one-year-old daughter. I then started my own design firm, T. Jones Creative, in September of 2010. It was definitely both exciting and challenging starting my own company, but in my head, I knew that I had to get back to my passion of painting and creating art. Scott and Victor provided that kick in the ass that I absolutely needed. I still currently own and operate T. Jones Creative and have been consistently painting for the last nine years.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road, but if you’re not challenged along your path in life what’s the point? Andy Dufresne said it best: “Get busy living or get busy dying.” Being challenged just makes me work that much harder to achieve my goals. As an artist, my days never really end, but more so just morph into one long journey of my life as being an artist. You can’t turn a creative mind off, which, in my opinion, is a good thing, but also a struggle. I usually don’t start painting until around 10 pm and try to wrap things up around 2 am or so, but sometimes, you mix that perfect color that you know you can never reproduce again, so you just have to keep on painting and finish that one section and then its 3 am before you know it and the birds are chirping. Sometimes these late nights make it a struggle to wake up in the morning! I am constantly thinking (which can also become a struggle) about how a commissioned painting is going to look when it is finished or about how a logo creation is going to come together for a client. Starting T. Jones Creative was one of the hardest things that I have ever done, but it has definitely been extremely rewarding, too. I’ve met so many inspiring individuals along the way. There were no business classes offered to me in college, so I had to teach myself everything about starting and running a successful business. Daily, I am the accountant, the creative director, director of operations, the designer, the doughnut guy, the sales associate, the father, and the husband, just to name a few positions.

Please tell us about your work as a contemporary artist & designer.
I have two companies, Tracy G. Jones | Contemporary Artist and T. Jones Creative. They may be separate companies by name, but for me, the ultimate goal is always to create one successful piece at the end of the day. As a contemporary artist, I create paintings using mostly acrylic paint and spray paint. The sizes of these paintings vary greatly. The largest painting I have created to date, six feet by three feet, was a commission for a collector in Denver, Colorado, who wanted a painting for his wife to give to her as a housewarming gift to hang in the first home that they bought together. It was a compilation of memories they shared, beginning from their first date all the way to drawings that their daughter had recently created. He told me he showed it to her, and she cried. I asked, “Did she cry because she hated it or because she loved it?” He laughed and said, “Because she loved it!”

As a designer, I create logos, websites, business cards, t-shirts, posters, brochures and basically anything else that can be designed. I mostly (but do not limit myself to) work with start-up companies to build their brand identity from the ground up. It is always exciting and never gets old meeting a client for the first time in person to sit down with them and hear their story firsthand as to why they are starting their company. It is my job as a designer to create pieces that showcase the passion that they are putting into starting their own new venture. As a painter, I am most proud of knowing that what I have created will forever be a part of the collector’s life. It’s an amazing feeling to have a collector come and visit my studio, see my process firsthand and then take their painting home with them. I create paintings that, either through the imagery or the title, are a memory of a specific event in my life. I can look back at any one of my paintings and tell you the exact story about why I created that specific piece. I once had a collector tell me that she spends time with my painting every day. I was absolutely blown away by this, and it still, in a good way, is crazy to me that I can have that impact on someone through my art.

As a designer, I am most proud of the fact that I am an integral part of helping a new business venture get off the ground and leading them on their path to success through my design. There are really no words that can describe how I feel when I see my work in public. It could be in a restaurant window or on a summer camp T-shirt, and it still has the same effect on me. A few dedicated fans even got tattoos of a logo I designed for a rock band. That is the true definition of my work living on forever (okay, maybe not with the recent advances in laser tattoo removal, but nonetheless, pretty cool). The fact that I don’t separate fine art from design sets me apart from others.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My favorite memory from my childhood is when I won the State of Indiana Pinewood Derby Championship in Cub Scouts. The race was held at Glendale Mall in front of a crowd of 250,000. Okay, more like a few hundred or so, if that. But that day I felt like I was one of 33 drivers in the Indianapolis 500. I was in 5th grade. I will never forget carrying my car up to the officials’ table for the last weigh-in before the final race, walking up the stairs to the top of the track, and then placing my car in its lane. My father and I worked really hard on designing and building that car. It was basically a well-designed, metallic blue door wedge with four wheels and two silver pinstripes off-centered to the right, for design aesthetics, of course.

Both of my parents and my older brother are exceptionally creative, but my father has this quality of paying a crazy amount of attention to detail in what he creates. I couldn’t be happier that this unique trait was passed down to me. This attention to detail is essentially what won us the championship. The wheels were polished with three different grits of sandpaper. The axles were sprayed with silicone, and the weight was strategically placed with precision in the front of the car. These were pre-Internet days (or as my kids call them, “the olden days”), so there were no forums to review “the secrets to winning a pinewood derby race” back then. These were all tricks my father had learned in his career as an artist/builder/designer. He even went so far as to hand-paint each individual spoke onto the wheels. The spokes were so small, I’m pretty sure he painted them with a few hairs plucked from his head. My car crossed the red laser beam first at the finish line! I jumped up in the air in celebration and then looked over at my parents who both had huge smiles on their faces. The championship trophy was taller than me, which I proudly raised above my head after it was presented to me. Unfortunately, or fortunately, no one brought me a big bottle of milk to chug or pour over my head, which is a long-standing tradition after winning the Indianapolis 500. Shortly after the race was over, my mother gave me a book on how to draw race cars and a brand new set of Swiss-made Caran d’Ache colored pencils, which I still have 33 years later. I guess she just knew I was going to win, or that’s what I thought, at least. It was definitely one of the best days ever from my childhood and I’m sure my parents were happy I didn’t smell like milk on the car ride home!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tracygjones.com
• Phone: 773.426.6109
• Email: tj@tracygjones.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whycart/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/The-Artwork-of-Tracy-G-Jones-108756919185728/
• Other: http://tjonescreative.com

Image Credit:
Personal Photo – Sebastian Szyszka

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