A West Liberty University graduate is leaving his mark on the publishing world, most recently by creating the cover image for Newsweek magazine’s 10th anniversary coverage of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Jesse Lenz produced not only the cover – depicting an airliner against a sky blue background, with the words, “Ten years of fear/grief/revenge/resilience” – but artwork for the inside pages of the 10th anniversary Newsweek issue. He also illustrated an article for The Washingtonian magazine, “The Day Before,” about the seeming ordinariness of Sept. 10, 2001.
Lenz, who earned a Bachelor of Science degree in graphic design in 2010, has created collage illustrations for a variety of periodicals, including Entertainment Weekly, The Atlantic, Popular Mechanics, New York Times, Readers’ Digest and dozens of other publications.
He did not originally plan to go to WLU to study art, he says, but was disappointed when he visited the art school he had considered attending. “They had no campus housing, campus life, and they didn’t even require me to show a portfolio. Can you believe that? An art school that doesn’t think it necessary to see a portfolio before letting you in! When I was getting a tour of (the West Liberty) campus, Professor Jim Haizlett showed me around the art department and introduced me to the faculty. I can honestly say that if it wasn’t for him, I would never have come to West Lib. I showed them my portfolio a couple of weeks after they gave out all of the scholarships for the next year, but he told me he would help me in anyway he could to come to West Lib. He got me a housing grant for my first year a couple weeks later.”
Lenz later met a noted illustrator, John Ritter, at a gallery show that the Pittsburgh society of Illustrators and put on at West Liberty University, and Ritter became a trusted mentor.
Haizlett said, “The keys to Jesse’s success boil down to hard work, great networking skills, an insatiable desire to learn and a bold belief that he can do great things.
“Jesse viewed his classes differently than the way a lot of college students do. He didn’t complete assignments simply to get a good grade, but to add to his arsenal of creative weapons to ultimately make his mark on the world of art and design.”
Lenz describes his work mainly as “digital collage/montage.”
Many of his illustrations incorporate old advertising photos, comic book covers and other classic art into what he has called “retro-futuristic collage.” While a student at WLU, Lenz won first place in the 2D category of NASA’s 2009 “Life and Work on the Moon” art and design competition. In that piece, he juxtaposed old science fiction and fantasy comic book art depicting what people in the past thought might be found in outer space with an image of the moon.
He explained, “I am inspired by everything in life, but one of the most important things I ever learned was a quote from Chuck Close that Professor Robert Villamagna is very fond of, ‘ Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.’
“That quote defined my work ethic my last two years of school. I didn’t do anything, but make art. Even if it wasn’t great art, it was leading me somewhere. It taught me that every work of art I make is not a masterpiece … but one out of every 10 or so is!”
His advice to students contemplating an art education is simple and straightforward. “I would tell them the advice that a very smart man told me. ‘College or university is like high school. You get out of it, what you put into it.’
“You can go to a school in the hills of West Virginia and if you dedicate yourself, work as hard as you can, and listen to the advice of people who want to see you succeed, you can come out of that school and succeed more than you can believe. But all in all your success is up to you.
“The professors at WLU will give you every opportunity to make something of yourself, but no one can want you to succeed more than you. I learned more from watching my professors live their lives than I ever learned in a classroom. They showed us what it looked like to live artistically, and I believe this was the most important thing they taught.”