Discovering Black Hidden Talents on USCA’s campus: How Jazz Coach channels her admiration for nature into her artwork
For a decade, Jazz combined her love of art with her role as a member of the Pacer family – as a former student, a women's basketball team player, and now campus event coordinator. Yet, she found solace in her artistry, creating awe-inspiring landscapes and wildlife portraits during her downtime. “I always watch nature documentaries,” Coach said. “I just started sketching a rhino and once I put it on snapchat and people saw how good it was, I just kept at it.”
Coach’s artistic journey started at a young age while taking advanced art classes in high school.
While enrolled at USCA, basketball occupied most of her time. “It wasn’t until 2020, when covid was at its peak when I started picking painting back up again,” she said. “When I first started again, I sucked at it. While I’ve always loved nature and wildlife, I just stuck with that. So, I continued every day until I got good at it.”
Coach's painting process is consistent, always beginning with the elements furthest in the background. As she adds layers of color, the artwork comes alive, with the final touches added on the last day of painting. Coach paints not just for her pleasure but also accepts commissions, ensuring her masterpieces are accessible to everyone by maintaining fair pricing. “I do talk to people about the prices beforehand,” she said. “I want everyone to have my artwork so that it’s not super expensive. I hope one day I won’t have to do commissions and people can just buy what I make.”
When asked who she’s most inspired by when it comes to painting, Coach said God. “I feel like he’s given us these gifts in life like wildlife and nature and sometimes we take advantage of it,” she said. “I feel like when covid happened we were stuck inside of the house, and we missed being outside. That’s why I like to paint wildlife.”
Coach has a deep admiration for masterpieces of the late Vincent Van Gogh and artistic creations of Andrew Tisch from Australia. Despite not attending art school, Coach learned a lot of what she knows by watching a lot of Tisch’s videos on YouTube. Inspired by Tisch’s choice of canvases and paintbrushes, she embarked on her personal artistic journey, purchasing similar materials to mimic his style. “I was an exercise science major while in school and I have no art background whatsoever,” she explained. “I’m in a gallery now in Atlanta with people who went to prestigious art schools and I’m just self-taught.”
Recently, Coach won second place in North Augusta Arts and Heritage Center’s ‘Artist of Color’ show for her eight-foot masterpiece called, Arizona Travelers. The artwork follows the story of a native American chief and a black cowboy painted in the desert. “Not a lot of people know about black cowboys or know they even existed, so I paint them a lot.”
Her work, along with nine other black artists,’ will be displayed at the center until Thursday, Feb. 29. Coach will soon embark on a new endeavor at Bridgestone Americas. Her last day at USCA will be Monday, March 4.
For more information contact: Angela Saxon, angela.saxon@usca.edu