Jim Kammerud has always been an artist and storyteller. He wrote and directed several Disney movies, and animated and storyboarded on many others, like The Peanuts Movie and Space Jam (the original and the sequel). He’s raised five kids and married the best girl in the world. Now he’s living in Saint Pete and returning to his first love, drawing and painting, but still always telling a story. Jim finds beauty in the human form, in our unique faces, in the connection between people and our environment, and in the joy of being with each other.
In the late 80’s Jim started an animation studio in Columbus, Ohio with his friends. They were making local TV commercials when The Little Mermaid came out, starting a renaissance in 2D animation. Soon Jim and his studio were working on Hollywood animated features, and it seemed like a dream come true.
“When you’re a kid, you draw for fun,” Jim Kammerud says. “And if you can draw really well, you might get into animation” and next thing you know you’re directing Disney movies, and it’s all awesome and everything, until one day you realize you don’t draw any more, you talk for a living.”
Jim started oil painting as a way to reconnect with his love of drawing, painting portraits of anyone willing to sit for him. “They were decent likenesses, because I could draw, but I was just figuring out this oil paint thing.”
Today Jim paints portraits, both from life and from photos. “A portrait in oils brings people joy. It becomes an heirloom passed down for generations,” Jim says. “And sometimes I make more contemporary pop art portraits, just pushing the color and brushwork to see what happens. And sure, dogs, cats, grandkids. It’s all super fun. When I’m painting I’m totally in the moment. Hours can go by and even though I’m concentrating fiercely I won’t have a thought in my head.”
Jim’s more personal work captures intimate moments of couples in their ordinary lives. “The most important thing that ever happened to me is my relationship with my wife, Janie [St. Pete oil painter Janie Haskins]. All the couples who model for us are really stand-ins for the two of us. I’m trying to express the joy of that connection, the sheer fun it is to be a couple and have someone to share your day with. My paintings are tender, or cuddly, or sexy, but they can be silly too. So much of what we see in popular culture leaves out the fun.”
Jim Kammerud typically photographs a couple at their home. “I have sketchbooks filled with ideas for paintings, and I guess because of my filmmaking background I think in scenes, developing a narrative image that tells a story. I use the drawings in those sketchbooks to pose the couples for photos that I’ll take back to the studio to paint.”
Jim still works in animation, storyboarding for feature films and TV. “Animation is amazing because you can gather four or five hundred people together and make this enormous art you could never make by yourself,” Jim says. “But what I love about painting is that I can tell the story I want to tell without raising 100 million dollars or getting the green light from a movie executive.”
Jim and Janie share a live-work space at the ArtsXchange in the Warehouse Arts District. “We live in a tiny apartment that feels like a dorm room, but we have a huge studio. And it’s great to share the space because we help each other out a lot.” Jim Kammerud’s studio is inside the big garage door next to the Tully-Levine Gallery. It’s open for Second Saturday Art Walk, the St. Pete Sunday Market on the 3rd Sunday of the month, and by appointment.