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Following your dreams doesn’t necessarily mean following your checkbook -- a life lesson local painter Jeff Musser can relate to.

Musser was born and raised in Sacramento and began sketching comics and actions figures when he was 5. He didn’t get serious about his work until he got placed into an advanced art class his freshmen year at Sacramento High School.

"(I) was around 15 when I decided this is what I want to do with my life,” Musser said.  “I wasn’t sure in what capacity -- whether I would be a sculptor or a graphic designer or (do) paint installation, but I just knew being creative and being an artist was what I was supposed to do.”

At the time, his work was mainly with pencil and charcoal.

Throughout high school, he attended various open houses in San Francisco hosted by The Art Institute of Chicago. His Father, Ron Musser, said he was admitted into the institute his junior year in high school after displaying his portfolio to an admissions representative.

But Musser didn’t go straight to the Art Institute of Chicago -- after high school, he attended American River College in order to complete his general education requirements and save some money. 

By the fall of 1997, he headed to the "Windy City" and the school of his dreams.

“I knew at the time that it was the best thing for him,” Ron Musser said. “Jeffery’s never been a small-town person, he needed to get out of Sacramento and explore and gain an understanding about life, which he did in Chicago.”

While at the art institute, Musser was introduced to a new love: oil painting. He took three painting classes, but decided to major in graphic design.

Musser said he was only thinking economically about his future when he declared his major, but he never lost his passion for painting.

“During my first real painting class, everything just seemed to come together,” he said. “I can’t really explain it other then once I found it, it just fit and I didn’t question it.”

After graduating in 2000, Musser began working for an ad agency in Chicago where he designed McDonald's happy meal boxes and displays.

But Musser said he was unhappy with his career path. 

Before he got the opportunity to leave the advertising industry, he was laid off at the end of 2001. He said that was when he decided he was going to paint for a living. 

That decision proved to be harder then imagined.

The following two years were the loneliest and most terrifying years of his life, Musser said.  He remained jobless and was living on food stamps, but refused to return to the advertising industry because it didn’t seem right.

“The part that people don’t tell you about chasing your dreams, they don’t tell you the terrifying revelations that come after you have made that leap,”  he said.

After returning to Sacramento, Musser worked various “odd” jobs at the mall and warehouses.

While working these other jobs, Musser never stopped painting. In college, he became interested in figurative art, a representation of forms derived from life, but never found a market for it in Chicago. He said Sacramento, surprisingly, welcomed his form of art. According to Musser, he sells about eight to 10 paintings a year for an average of $2,000 per work--he is now able to paint full-time.

At the beginning of 2003, he was commissioned by Oprah Winfrey to paint her dogs Sophie and Solomon.

Since then, Musser has had much success and various shows around the area, including his recent “Messages in Flesh” display at Sacramento State. The body of work includes paintings of human figures with large tattoos.

“It took me a while to figure out what I was going to focus on,” Musser said. “Then I realized I wanted to work out our generation's obsession with tattoos -- why they get them, where they get them, why they express themselves on such a canvas using someone else’s artwork.”

Musser said he typically approaches locals with tattoos and asks permission to paint them.  Garrett Van Vleck, co-owner of Shady Lady, said he agreed to be one of Musser’s subjects after he was approached four months ago.

Van Vleck said he’s not sure what Musser has in store for his painting, but can’t wait to find out.

“I was actually really inspired to let him do a painting of me because of how impressed I was with his other stuff,” Van Vleck said, adding that he has various tattoos, including ones on his back, chest and calf.  “I think (his artwork) is pretty amazing.”

Musser has become heavily involved in Sacramento's art scene in recent years.

In May, he joined the Verge Gallery co-op, an art society with shared space, in Sacramento.  The co-op currently has 15 members, including Musser as well as local artists Liv Moe, Lisa Marasso and Jacob Fossum.

Musser's next group show will be Jan. 9, the first Second Saturday of 2010, at the Verge Gallery on 1900 V Street. He said 10 pieces from his "Message in Flesh" body of work will be featured, 90 percent of them being new work.

For more information about the show, visit vergegaller.com

For more information about Musser, visit jeffmusser.com

Photos Courtesy of Jeff Musser