This year’s featured Arts Festival Oklahoma artist was headed toward a law career when she found herself on an entirely different path altogether —painting.

AFO features a different artist each year, displaying that person’s art in a special booth during the festival.

Jamie Rice from Dallas is the featured artist for AFO 2014.

Rice said she has always drawn but she didn’t start painting until after she was in college about to start law school.

She said that endeavor caused her to become stressed so she started meditating.

“I had this meditation story where basically everything that I said or everything that I was asking about there was a strong message to paint,” Rice said. “It was loud and clear, and it was kind of hard to ignore.”

At first, Rice said, she was skeptical because she hadn’t done anything that creative in a long while.

However, she said, she decided to trust her instincts and ended up teaching herself how to paint.

“I kind of dropped my studies and built a canvas. It sat there empty for a while and then I just started painting and it kind of came to life by itself.

“I was never interested in painting. I mean, I could draw and everything, but I couldn’t paint, so I just kind of had to teach myself in the process of doing this (first) piece,” Rice said.

After she completed that piece of art, she said, she became more well-known within the community.

Now, she takes part in events and her paintings are displayed in a local gallery.

Rice said her main form of art is mixed media — painting and collage. She said all of her paintings have a deeper meaning.

“Everything is very spiritual and it’s all based on collective consciousness, perspective and it’s all telling a different story. I … use different subject matters to tell the same kind of a story.

“I do a lot of hands because they’re used to depict pointing or showing you something. There’s pointing, there’s framing, so hands are something I do paint a lot. It’s mainly all about that story.”

Rice said she spends the majority of her time painting, but her favorite thing is to commission paintings. She said working with other people gives her the ability to cocreate.

“We end up with these things that otherwise, … I wouldn’t have by myself and neither would they,” she said. “We create something together and it’s just this neat process.”

Although Rice attended AFO last year as a vendor, this is her first year to attend as the featured artist.

“I did the show last year and I met some really good people but it’s pretty exciting to get to tell more about the meaning behind everything … and to be the poster artist. I’m really excited about it.”

For more information, visit Rice’s website at www.jamiericeart.com or check out her Facebook page at facebook.com/jamiericeart.

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