A nomadic artist found kindred spirits in Reno
Photo/Kris Vagner
Happy Happy accidents accidents
Jen Charboneau is an artist, a nomad and an organizer of community painting events who’s turned rolling with the punches into an art career. One day, her car broke down on the way out West, so she decided to stay a while and plant some roots in the Reno art community. “I can see from this weird, outsider viewpoint,” she said, multitasking during a recent reception for her exhibit, Yesterdays News, at Reno Art Works, where she’s the new gallery and workshop director. Earlier in the evening she’d set up a small workbench where visitors waited in line, each with a newspaper page and a dollar in hand. For that low price, she drew a portrait of each person, a resourceful, assertive gesture drawing in bright pastel chalk, right on the newspaper. She moved to the front room to give an impromptu talk to an appreciative audience of about 20. Smiling broadly and moving like a dancer, she gained rapport instantly. She kept chatting with the crowd as she bent to the floor to dip a broad brush into pink paint and fill in a large, white canvas—which had been hanging on the wall all evening blank—with brushstrokes and drips over a charcoal sketch of the audience. (The first two syllables of her name, by the way, are charbon, which means “charcoal” in French.) Still painting, she explained how her upcoming painting events will work: “You get to paint. I’ll put in some subject matter. You paint some more.”
On the spot
“I can see from this weird, outsider viewpoint” Jen Charboneau, Reno Art Works gallery and workshop director
by
Kris Vagner 16 | RN&R |
APRIL 28, 2016
Charboneau, a Minneapolis native who uses a Canadian-sounding “O” in words like “out” and “about,” finished college in Minnesota in 2009 and promptly started wandering the globe. In each city she visited, she said, “I would always find out where the art markets were. I’d do the $10 pay, and I’d set out a blanket and set out these smaller pieces of mine.” One day, selling art at a market in Broome, a remote resort town in northwest Australia, she got bored. She decided to start painting right there at the market to keep herself busy. “Once you’re doing something active it catches people’s eyes a little bit longer,” she said. People stopped to watch her paint. She joined forces with a charismatic seven-year-old, the daughter of the market manager. Both Charboneau and the girl found working on the spot was a more stimulating, more lucrative way to sell their work than sitting and waiting for customers. Little did she know at the time that painting outdoors and interacting
