From Side Hustle to Sold Out: Jennifer M. Walker on Finding Her Niche and Trusting Her Own Timeline

* I️ misspoke when announcing the Club - spots are open from September 16th - the 24th!  Jennifer M. Walker is a St. Louis-based painter who's been selling her work for three and a half years, and in the last year has found real traction with botanicals, even though her heart still wanders toward abstract work and patterned framing. In this conversation, she walks through the actual trajectory of her career: painting quietly at home after leaving a corporate job, a studio that came with the house she and her husband bought, a two-year adoption journey that turned painting into an emotional outlet, and the local shop visit on a family walk that eventually led to her best sales weekend ever at a Round Top-style show.We get into the stepping-stone nature of an art career, how relationships and "wasted" opportunities compound over time, and why Jennifer believes none of her past jobs or slow seasons were ever really wasted. She's candid about using ChatGPT to place her work in styled rooms for Instagram, despite her instinct to resist AI as someone who loves physical books, handmade work, and supporting other makers, and why she's landed on it as a tool that solves a real problem rather than something that cheapens what she does.We also dig into her marketing engine: how she built an Instagram strategy around recurring content pillars (she compares it to a newspaper column), why she posts the same piece of art multiple times without guilt, and how a simple DM conversation starter turns into a commission. Jennifer talks honestly about the harder parts too: juggling four young kids with a growing business, the years it took to stop feeling like an imposter calling herself an artist, and how she sets financial and creative goals she can hold loosely.She closes with what's ahead: new releases through the Scouted Studio this fall, a collaboration with Serena & Lily launching in September, and a show with Mended at Round Top in October.Find Jennifer on Instagram at @jennifermwalkerart and at jennifermwalkerart.com and check out her new collection on thescoutedstudio.com.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.