Jen Raven is an artist who has, with the help of many others, overcome several challenges to become an artist. She has fought against illness to become who she is today, an artist who is a part of, and helped develop, the art scene here in Bakersfield.
Raven grew up in a military family in the Edwards Air force area and attended Desert High School. Jen says that “there was not a whole lot to do” growing up on the base, so to pass the time, Raven drew and sketched figures often. She learned to draw by drawing on the back of her school assignments.
She is grateful for the simple life she had in her childhood and believes it helped her develop as an artist.
Raven has struggled with Lupus her entire life. She was ultimately diagnosed positive in 2004. At its worst, the disease took Raven’s ability to move and use her hands. She described this time as “dark days” and “horrible.”
During this time her husband, Todd Powers, provided major encouragement in her life. When discouraged by her disease, Powers would give her uplifting words to keep her perusing art.
“You always wanted to be an artist someday,” He said. “You’re going to be an artist now.” He would get her any art supplies she needed and drive her to poetry meetings to keep her creativity going when she couldn’t draw. He now keeps a watchful eye on her, making sure she still stays healthy.
“It was difficult, there is pain everyday,” said Raven about the disease. “You can’t let it beat you down. You can’t let it dominate your life. You can’t let it win. You can’t give up.
“Being ill really makes you prioritize. I was always saying, ‘Someday, I’ll be an artist when I retire, someday, someday, someday,'” she said. “When you have a disease that could kill you, it makes you go, ‘Well, fuck, someday. I want to do this now.'”
Raven believes that if it were not for her disease, she would not be a full time artist.
With this new focus on her art, Raven also changed who she was. For her entire life she felt pressure to have more traditional career and life. She was raised in a religious environment that encouraged more traditional roles for women.
She remembers going to church and babysitting for many of her early adult years. Before her illness worsened, she let these expectations define who she was. After deciding to become serious about pursuing art, she stopped pretending to be what she wasn’t and started to be what she was.
She said that she “changed overnight” from a conservative person to someone she felt she was.
To discover that person, she joined a local theater group called, RAT. Raven said, “I wanted to get in touch with my other half; I fell into RAT. I discovered this whole side of myself. I discovered who I was through RAT. I had to go to complete extremes to throw off the old me before I could find out who I was. It was 2007 when I felt like I became me. It took me that long.”
In 2006, Raven and others started the Burn the Witch art show in Bakersfield. An annual, all women art show. Raven was humbled by the experience as she worked with women who, she said, “Had to wait until their husbands were in bed, and the kids were asleep to get out the paints and paint in secret because their husbands didn’t want them painting. It completely changed the way I saw Bakersfield. I didn’t realize there were so many of us.”
Raven saw Burn the Witch as an opportunity to give alternative and underground artist a voice and also as an opportunity to give these artists experience in putting on a show and learning the ins and outs of the art world. She turned it into a year long event where she taught these artists how to make resumes, pose for headshots and hang their artwork. According to Raven, the community response has been “huge.”
There have been cases where art is defamed. But Raven says that such setbacks and challenges are what make Bakersfield’s art scene what it is. “Bakersfield makes you prove how much you want it. The best art in history has come out of times when it was most difficult, when there was something that needed to be said. Bakersfield is going to make us work harder to prove how much we want it. It weeds out the people who aren’t that serious; the people that are serious remain. [They] do what they have to do, because they are serious about their art.” Raven said she has worked with such artists in Burn the Witch and otherwise.
At the third Burn the Witch, Raven had a revelatory experience. “The night the opening was done, I came home and I sat down and I couldn’t stop smiling. I thought the smile would break my face. I said, ‘My heart has healed up.’ It healed me. I felt all the wrongs that really made an impact on me growing up. I felt like I had fixed it somehow. I feel like I vindicated the person in me that didn’t get what a lot of these girls [are getting]. It healed me somehow.”
Raven is now preparing for her first solo show. It will be on Jan. 4 at a new art collective called, The Foundry. She has appeared many times with others around town, but this is her first solo show.
She said that she is “terrified” by the idea of her first solo show but that a “pleasant surprise” has happened because of this terror. She is figure drawing for the first time since her Lupus worsened. “I was stressed out and nervous, so I started doing more and more details.
“Before I knew what I was doing, I stepped back and realized that I was painting figuratively again. It’s been 10 years since I could paint like this. I’ve gotten healed up enough and well enough that I can do this. I just started crying and laughing. So I called all my friends and said. ‘Guess what I can do. I can hold a fine brush.'”