Jimmy Pickering wishes his bio could read, "Long ago, longer than it may seem, Jimmy Pickering was raised in an ancient castle, in a distant land by a loving vampire family." However, that simply wouldn't be the truth. Reality is somewhat less glamorous as he was raised in a trailer park, in the tiny little town of Talent, Oregon. Never really fitting into his surroundings, his imagination and ability to draw allowed him to escape a world of car ports, shag carpet and faux wood paneling on a daily basis and started him on a path of creativity he might not have gotten had he truly been raised by vampires. Jimmy grew and he drew until the day came when he was accepted as a student into California Institute of the Arts School of Film and Video. There he studied character animation, production design, art direction and most importantly, the art of storytelling. For the first time in his life Jimmy found himself surrounded by other artists and finally found his niche.

Upon graduation, Jimmy began an interesting career, which gave him the opportunity to work for the most creative companies in the world: Walt Disney Imagineering, Hallmark Cards Inc., Universal Studios to name a few. Although these experiences have been distinctively varied, he says at the core of everything he has done is an element of storytelling. So it seemed a natural next step for him to venture out on his own to start telling his own stories. Jimmy left the corporate world and began telling these stories through his art, first in "sold out" gallery shows and then into the world of publishing through his illustration and writing. Now he is telling stories this way full time.

"For me everything I do comes down to storytelling. It may be found in a painting, it may be in words or a combination of the two, but storytelling is always at the core of it all." Recently, along with his partner, Jimmy opened Lunar Boy Gallery in Astoria, Oregon, a destination gallery dedicated to artists in the design world who rarely get the opportunity to show their own creativity outside of the work place. "Lunar Boy Gallery is a chance for these artist to tell their own stories outside their nine to five jobs. Who knows, maybe it will inspire them to take the next step in fulfilling their creative dreams."

JimmyPickering

Selected works

Jimmy
Pickering