The Scoop sat down with Jacqueline Warren, a Professor of Art and Art History Artist in Residence at Drury University. Warren teaches at Drury in the fall and lives abroad in the spring as an artist in Florence Italy.
She first started traveling to Florence regularly in 1990. In 2010, she purchased a house in Tuscany. Warren, who is an accomplished painter, also opened her own studio at that time which allows her to continue her work as an artist while in Italy.
Q: How has travel affected your professional and personal life?
A: “It’s all about where you get inspiration and where you get ideas. I have always looked to the West for ideas growing up. I’ve always looked for an environment and a feeling, and to live where I could look at great things. I’m from California and I was born in San Diego, but I’ve lived everywhere. I changed High Schools twelve times because of my father’s work. It was just the way it was, so I never rebelled. I’ve been in Florence for so long, but every time I go, I see more. I’ve absorbed so much of where I have lived.”
Q: As a professor, you have been taking students on trips abroad. Do you believe there is value in studying abroad?
A: “Well, I do, and I think the most important thing is to make it affordable. I am still so connected to the students I have travelled with. I am still good friends with a few. Some of the things students are studying may not resonate with them now, but someday they are going to walk into a place in the world and remember what they discovered. They have no idea now, but it means so much to know what you are looking at, or at least to have an exposure. I grew up not really being able to absorb where I lived. The first thing I thought of when I got out of college was that I just wanted to go somewhere.”
Q: As an American now living in a foreign country, what challenges have you faced transitioning part of your life to Italy?
A: “Where I live there are very few Americans and if they are there, they’ve lived in Italy for so long that they don’t appear to be Americans or speak English very often. Everything that my husband said was missing in America, I would say that Europe is full of that. It’s an old world. There is something that we have lost in America when it comes to families. Europeans don’t go to school in the afternoon. They come home for lunch, and they all have lunch together. When I first saw that I thought, ‘Oh my Gosh’. There is a big component in family living that I just love. When I come back to America, I am unhappy with everything. It’s an adjustment. I love where I live in Springfield. I just have to find things that make me happy. You can’t waste your life bemoaning where you are. You have to really find joy. Life is short.“
Q: What advice do you have for those who are interested in the world of art but don’t know where to start?
A: “If you are thirsty for having a quality experience, if you make a little drawing every single day, within a year you will have a stack of stuff that is evidence that you lived. As opposed to just being done with it. To walk into my studio is like to walk into my life. It’s historical. My art is my life. Find things you really love, but don’t focus on just one thing in art. Study them all and don’t focus. It’s really about looking beyond what you think you should be. I never worried about it and now I am making a living as an artist.”
