This issue we profile Lannie Pihajlic, a Denver, Colorado-based multimedia artist and writer whose evocative works are both challenging and visionary.

CJMT: First, please tell us a bit about yourself.

I am a Denver-based artist and been doing art as long as I can remember. My fav thing I made as a kid was using a branding iron to burn a witch (that sounds weird, but this time into creation) across my entire bedroom door. I enjoy sculpting, pen & ink, painting and really any kind of art media. Why pick a lane? When not making art, I teach elementary students art, for my company Art for Life Colorado.

CJMT: What are your primary influences as an artist?

Wow, so many to name. Growing up, I absolutely loved old school D&D (David A. Trampier blew my mind) and comic book artists. Into my twenties and beyond, I adored Norman Rockwell, Todd Lockwood, Charles Vess, James Jean, John Bryne, Neal Adams, and Bill Sienkiewicz.

CJMT: What are you working on now?

Three pieces- a Resistance graffiti piece, a sculpture of a field of aspens, and a painting of cone flowers.

CJMT: When you look over your body of work, what do you think is your overall “grand vision” or “burning question”?

Great question that has me thinking! I suppose art for me has always been taking my inner interests and life and externalizing these into our actual world (Duh), so my ‘grand vision’ has changed over time. It’s a difficult thing to put into words, but I know two things the older I get:

1. My emotions immerse into my art and hopefully evoke the same into the viewer. I make art because I feel something and if you can cause someone to feel something, what a grand thing.

2. Kurt Vonnegut perhaps said it best: “The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.”

CJMT: What have you found most challenging in creating art and balancing a career? family? other commitments?

All of the above. My favorite teacher, Chris Ransick, eventually became Denver’s Poet Laureate, and always taught that our creativity is sacred and that it is essential for us to carve out space to create, even if need be we have to fight for that space. We all do, hopefully not too much to the detriment of what matters to us besides our art. It’s easy to get out of balance and not give the time or space to our art. I surely am guilty of this in various eras of my life (I’m looking at you grad school!). This brings to mind another poet, Mary Oliver. Again, her words say it better than I can: “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave it neither power nor time.”

CJMT: What would you like to share about your individual or collaborative writing/art projects?

I enjoy writing as much as art, both leading to inner trance states that allow us to access parts of ourselves we can in no other way. Tying this to the previous question, we can do this in an incredibly short period of time. You can fit some creativity in the fifteen minutes you have waiting for an appointment, write or edit or draw while you’re waiting for dinner to cook, practice chords on your ukulele while your partner is getting ready. If you’re willing to go small, incrementally it can add up over time.

CJMT: What’s next for you?

Well, I feel a great calling to use my art for causes, at the moment. We are in such dark, divisive times. Any small amount I can push the needle, however infinitesimally small, helps (and I am aware of what Vonnegut thought of how futile this can be). I have a great love for the Stoics and stoicism teaches that even if our efforts effect no outer change, it is the virtuous path for us to try. Let’s all try, and together, many of us will break through.

CJMT: Is there anything else you would like to tell our readers about?

Hhhhmmm, I’ve been taking the phrase ‘hunt for joy’ to heart of late. There’s joy in our creative pursuits (and a hell of a lot of labor, too). I try to remember the joy can be our fuel. Enjoy the steps forward, the inevitable steps backwards (mistakes), and then the determined steps past our mistakes into new heights. And savor the joy we find elsewhere, in laughing away time visiting a friend, chasing your dog, playing with your cat, or teasing your loved ones. My students are a great source of joy for me, as are stories, nature, and being lucky enough to not only be alive, but to live in a time and place of our ancestors couldn’t have dreamed possible.