About

Welcome!

I'm Jo, I've always enjoyed making different kinds of art like drawing, painting, writing, beading, and experimenting with jewelry. I also love reading and playing music. But none of that paid the bills, so I never took it too seriously and made sure I always had a "real" job.

I earned a degree in audio production and spent years working in audio engineering, production manufacturing, and technical coordination. I've always been drawn to the intersection of art and science.

I landed a job in audio production working for someone I respected. It wasn’t perfect but it made sense, it was a great fit, and the owner became my mentor. Then the company shut down after my mentor passed, and that was it. I couldn’t picture working for anyone else, nothing else out there felt worth chasing anymore so I stopped trying to pee up that rope.

This art shop is my decision to take everything I have learned from my experiences over the years, combine it with the work ethic I maintained to keep a steady job, and create my own job for myself. I have lots of ideas and plans in the works for pieces that heavily align with my work background, and some that don't. 

I named this studio Failed Art because I'm a smart-ass. It's a facetious comment on the devaluation of art in our society. But if you wanna get all deep about it - failure is built into the systems we live in, especially for artists. We’re told our time isn’t worth anything, our work has no value unless it can scale, go viral, or turn a profit, that if we’re not constantly succeeding on someone else’s terms then we’re doing it wrong.

Anyways, why on earth did I choose to make bookmarks? I'm a book nerd, I have a book collection most would think impractical, but I don't care. I've always liked to make my own bookmarks, so I thought it would be a great place to start small and work my way up to the more ambitious and expensive projects I’m planning. 

Thanks for taking a look at what I do.

Jo