Jaymie Karn Creative

Thank you for the out-est, queerest, most exciting FMO yet! I took almost no pictures except these ones. Thank you to this community for your ever-open arms and for loving me more and more than I knew I could be loved. Thank you for sharing your songs and your hearts with me. And most importantly, thank you for finally connecting me with my long-time crush, the handsomely effervescent Scotty!

🐕

I’ll be busy for the next week at for my first year working there! If you need me, no you don’t!

This year’s camp artwork and design were based on original poster artwork by J McGlaughlin.

🏳️‍🌈 Happy Pride! 🏳️‍⚧️ Stop by next week to see the two cuties and .herrron play!!

You ought to seriously come to this July. I'll be there in my new role as *Camp Assistant* and can be found doing things such as:

- trying my best
- organizing human beings and things
- announcing the schedule and running around real fast
- laughing real hard
- smiling when confused
- staying up late watching jams
- helping YOU! (assuming you're a camper or instructor, which you should be)

We don't have many bluegrass camps around here, you're truly missing out if you don't take part. Y'all come.

See you on Saturday at these exact addresses at these exact times to watch these exact artists! Come hang.

It's my third year running doing art and design for and I'm so grateful!!

I'm enjoying myself far too much with this design work. stop being fun to work for, golly gee.

Also, this year's awards are at the for the conference in Mississauga and I cannot stress enough how lovely it will be. Celebrate our folk with us in October 🎉

I love the work I get to do for 💕

Come out to and check out this truly incredible lineup of artists!
I’ll be drawing the map with show times for release next week! I really love getting to design for a hometown music event 🥲

I hope you’re singing.

Just a couple of goofies from our very rugged, woodsy, outdoorsy time this summer in Manitoulin and around Lake Superior. Photos by because of course they are.

A fun fact about this artwork is that it is actually on display upside down.

And no it is not the museum’s fault, I gave it to them the wrong way up. When I was finishing up this painting as well as its sister for exhibition, I sewed the rod pocket on the wrong side by mistake.

The thing is, the actual goal and point of this show was for me to joyfully focus on making stitched pieces that make me laugh or really happy without any editing or judging my intuition. Another rule I made for this series was that I was not allowed to fix any mistakes or redo any decisions, whatever I improvised was final.

Learning to play while staying within set technical constraints and hard creative boundaries is maybe the most freeing artistic exercise I’ve given myself, and it became easier to just sew and make work without freezing up or second guessing.

This looks so much better upside down.

Some see my exhibition "Swing Records at Bedtime" at the Smiths Falls Heritage House Museum to see all brand new quilted and stitched work that I'm very proud to share!

I'll be there all day tomorrow (10am-4pm) for a special double feature! It's the opening of my show AND I'll be doing live yarn spinning as a part of the museum's Doors Open event!

The curation team has done an incredibly cool and amazing job installing my quilts, they work so hard so please come by to see THEIR hard work!

If you can't make it, don't sweat it because the exhibition is running until September 10th!

🚸🐡🐠🐟

🧵🪡I have an upcoming art show at in Smiths Falls and it’s ALL brand new stitched work! I’ve been furiously sewing and prepping leading up to the opening night on July 14th, so here are a couple of pictures I’ve managed to remember to take!
The exhibition is called “Swing Records at Bedtime” and is entirely stitched artwork / quilted paintings and the show will be up for all of July and August for your quilty pleasure.

💛💛💛 I’m so happy with how this stage for Smiths Falls Porchfest turned out!! I built and painted a pretty huge project for me, and thank you to everyone who allowed me to be nervous in their direction about it leading up to Porchfest and to and for pulling me through it with the install. It worked out, I’m proud of it, and I got to be a part of community-driven music in a whole new way. It’s also probably the most accurate representation of my creative identity as a “folk designer” yet.

Thank you so much for giving me a really great opportunity and for putting on a huge great show for everyone!!

If anyone got any particularly cool shots of the stage at Porchfest, throw them my way! Permission to message me, granted!

The last few photos or of my wee small backyard pop-up workshop.

Your new favourite album will be available streaming in its entirety very soon! 🌺 But until then, you can look at the real, official album art for the bluegrass folk record by right here!
Love you, buddy. You make my favourite music and are a deep breath of authenticity. 🌻

🪕Get excited for this year’s Smiths Falls PORCHFEST! I got to make the artwork and the map for it for the second year in a row and I really couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

I’m noticing an actual artistic style developing again and I feel like it’s been years since I had a reliable hand. It’s really nice being back in the art saddle like this! Thanks for putting on a great show for the community and letting me contribute the best way I know how.

I'm so proud of this work!

These three illustrations are a part of a really beautiful project that Pete Woods has put together and I'm so glad to have made these three pieces for it.

Each image is entirely made in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop and they somehow feel so tactile and textural and weirdly real.

Pete gave me some AI-generated images as a visual jumping-off point and I wanted to push a theme of releasing/harnessing control that I found in the images and in the source material.

So, I wrote out a series of rules that I stuck to for translating those images into these "hand-made" human-processed digital collages. There's a really weird tension between authenticity and authorship going on here and I'm diggin it.

🐴 = 🪕
Working on a design with musicians and farmers is a very similar experience, oddly enough.

Both kinds sets of folks are used to doing absolutely everything related to their craft on their own so they're really independent and innovative thinkers, they have really clear visions of what they want, and are refreshingly decisive on what doesn't work visually.

Working with passionate people is so thrilling, I'd highly recommend it.

I'd also recommend supporting our farmers. Here are Isabelle's ponies Abby and Kenny from .farm which is an organic draft-powered veggie farm in Kemptville. In the summer, Isabelle told me that Kenny used to be a logging pony in Quebec and if a pony can make a huge career pivot, why can't I?

Introducing ReFolkUs: A new podcast by Folk Music Ontario, for folk artists and music industry professionals who want to learn how to make money, find their creative community, and stay grounded and healthy in this intensely stressful but heart-centred industry.

More info: https://linktr.ee/folkmusicontario

Each episode, we tap into the most inspirational minds from every corner of the music industry and discuss how to build your business, protect your mental and physical health, and ultimately, create a life and a living of your dreams, without burning out.

The premiere episode releases March 1! Visit the link above, find your preferred podcast player, and hit that subscribe button to ensure you never miss an episode!

ReFolkUs - Presented by Folk Music Ontario
Hosted by: Rosalyn Dennett
Produced by: Kayla Nezon (Folk Music Ontario), Rosalyn Dennett, Tim Fraser + Tanya Chopp (Murdoch Entertainment)
Recorded by: Kayla Nezon, and Jordan Moore (The Pod Cabin)
Edited by: Jordan Moore
Theme music: “Amsterdam” by King Cardiac
Artwork by: Jaymie Karn Creative

The ReFolkUs Project is made possible through the generous support of the Department of Canadian Heritage

I made a genuinely important post for FMO and I'm posting it here too. I'm proud of the design for sure, but I just want you to read it and share it please please please.

Folk Music Ontario is strongly urging all folks to act now to oppose the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's proposed rate increases; that would make touring in the United States for international artists significantly more expensive.


If the proposed fee increases were confirmed, touring and gigging in the U.S. for all international artists, would become cost prohibitive in a way that could become a huge detriment to the careers of emerging and export-ready musicians.


The proposed rate increase would see the filing fees for regularly processed O-type visa petitions increase from $460 to $1,655, an increase of 260%. Processing fees for P-type, including P-2 petitions would rise by 251% from $460 to $1,615.


There are 2 ways in which you may be able to help this cause:


Canadians: please reach out to all US buyers, venues, artists, associations, etc., you may work with, to seek their assistance, and use your platform to help spread the word and the call-to-action.

Americans: please lend your voice to this cause – as it will be US citizens and businesses that the US government will primarily consider comments from.


In addition to issuing a formal comment in response to the USCIS Proposals, everyone is strongly encouraged to forward a copy of your comments to your U.S. Senators and members of the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as engage your audiences, speak up and out!


Link in bio to more info

I officially am too busy to take on any new work until March!

In our house, we talk a lot about seasonal creative work and have been framing intense work periods as “harvest seasons”, which for us means slogging it out for a period of time and then having other stretches of time where you slow way down to practice, plan, organize, and problem-solve. There are different harvest seasons for different crops, or I guess revenue streams in our case.

Well, I foolishly thought January and February would be time to just focus on my new job with FMO and just plant some seeds for my graphic design business to tend to later. Turns out the seeds I planted last year that I forgot about are coming up unseasonably early. Whoops!

It’s easy for me to get overwhelmed and distracted, so I’m going to focus on the jobs I have active right now and close my books otherwise for February. If you want to work with me, get in touch but just know that I won’t be able to move on any new work or have a meeting until next month.

Working away on a bunch of projects and loving my extremely creative new year.