Interview with J.E. Crum

MEET NUNUM'S SPRING 2020 CONTRIBUTOR: J.E. Crum

6/14/2020

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NUNUM

Blending Flash Fiction & Art

Interview with J.E. Crum

J.E. Crum

Inspiration from Iceland

We usually get some great feedback from readers about the art we are so fortunate to feature in NUNUM, but J.E., when your work was on the cover the response went to another level. Could you give us a little background on where these images came from?

These pieces were created in summer 2019 during a 2 week trip to Iceland. Each piece is 9x12 inches. The medium is watercolor & pen.

Spending long days of 23 hours of daylight hiking in nature, discovering waterfalls, and exploring small towns with local folklore and legends, I painted and drew exploratory creations. Some of my favorite places I stayed in Iceland name the pieces, including the Unesco world heritage site, Latrabjarg, in The West Fjords of Iceland (the most western part of Europe) where I could listen to laughing gulls and watch puffins curiously approach me as I sat on the hills, making my art outside.

What was the first book you remember picking and reading by yourself?

The Tourist’s Guide to Transylvania: A Traveller’s Handbook of Count Dracula’s Kingdom. My father took me often to a local book store when I was a child, and around the age of six I was very taken by quite a spooky book filled with visual illustrations about vampires and Transylvania. I’ve always been fascinated by monsters and fantasy I suppose.

Everytime I ask that question, I get a wonderful surprise, thank you. What about more recently, what was the last book you read that made you say damn that was a good book?

Holmavik by J.E. Crum

The Terror by Dan Simmons

NUNUM Spring 2020 Cover by J.E. Crum

There has recently been a miniseries on AMC television based on this book, but I couldn’t put it down – and like most stories made into film, the book is way better.

Let's flip to art, contemporary artists, who gets your admiration?

I am honestly still love Egon Schiele and Kathe Kollwitz, who are two of my favorites, but I am also very fond of the work by JAW Cooper, an English illustrator/artist based now in Los Angeles. I also like the art of Mark Bryan.

Is there an artist in your local community that you would recommend people check out?

Clinton Neuhaus is an amazing fantasy artist based in California. His work astonishes me – you can check him out on Facebook. Powerful stuff.

What about you J.E., which artists have influenced your current artistic direction?

That’s truly hard to answer as I am always feeling as if I am on my own path. Perhaps when I see new exhibitions, such as a current exhibition on mythical creatures and monsters – what I see and like makes me re-evaluate what I am doing. The Pre-Raphaelites are a group of artists I just learned about. Odilon Redon has been a big inspiration, as a very strange, obscure surrealist – love his work.

Bird Cliffs of Latrabjarg by J.E. Crum

What advice would you give someone who is just starting to send their work out to journals?

Seydisfjordur by J.E. Crum

Keep trying – you never know who is going to like your work and when you get a published piece it can keep you going to make more, knowing you have an audience.

Well said, thank you J.E., for your time and for your beautiful work.

J.E. Crum is a fantasty artist who creates a myriad of self-

portraits that are transformed into allegorical figures and muses. The artist works intuitively and tends to draw inspiration from mythologies as personal narratives evolve from abstractions she creates when she is lost in the process of making her energetic pieces. See more of J.E.’s work by visiting www.zhibit.org/jecrum where Crum shares images, as well as information regarding purchasing work, current publications and upcoming exhibitions.