My career as an artist started in 2015 when I fell off a building.
Let me back up a second.
I grew up drawing everyday. As a teenager I added painting. I got into Carnegie Mellon University School of Art and promptly had an existential freakout. Did I want to be a professional artist? How would I eat? What about all the other things I wanted to study -- literature, theater, religion?
I switched to Humanities before I even got to my dorm room. I hardly drew or painted for twenty years.
It was like someone shut off the faucet. I composed songs, joined an a capella group, acted in student shows. I did my honors thesis in fiction. But even after I transferred to Brown University, the art didn’t show up.
After college I embarked on a career as a singer-songwriter, recording three albums, producing a fourth and performing all over. I got some great accolades, including Oregon’s Best Singer-Songwriter 2007. Theater gigs popped up: Music directing, playing in the house band, even a little acting. Then teaching jobs: Musical theater camps for kids, music for synagogue Sunday school, and finally preschool music in the classroom.
Then another weird thing happened: In 2015 I fell off that building.
I didn’t mean to. I was climbing stairs to a deck at an Air BnB in New Orleans. Once my friends and I all got on the staircase, it went down. I fell ten feet, broke my leg, and sustained a traumatic brain injury.
I thought it was a concussion that would pass. It didn’t. After weeks of laying in bed, sensitive to light and noise, vision-impaired, unable to read or watch TV, I did the only thing I could think of: I started drawing.
I don’t want to give the impression it was an instant transformation. I just sketched now and then. I dug up art techniques from high school and tried them out again. Slowly but surely, it helped. Slowly, I got better.
I kept at it. A few years back I got back into abstract painting with acrylics. I felt so at home in it that I just kept doing it. I studied other artists and teachers, as much as I could with my still-recovering vision and brain energy. I couldn’t get enough. It’s super fun.
Recovery from the brain injury has taken years. I’m still working on it. I might always be working on it. I’m definitely a different person today. But I like this me better. I’m more patient, calm, measured. I value things differently. I’m a better dad, friend, teacher, spiritual student.
I hope you like the work! Drop me a line at justinjcarroll@gmail.com.
Curriculum Vitae
Education:
BA English Literature, Honors in Creative Writing, Brown University, 1997
BA candidate English/Theater, Carnegie Mellon University, 1993-95
Solo Exhibitions:
Caffe Destino, Portland, OR, Dec 2023
Sarah Bellum’s, Portland, OR, May 2023
Portland Playhouse, Portland, OR, Feb-Mar 2023
Cross-disciplinary exhibit to accompany production of What I Learned in ParisGround Coffee, Hood River, OR, Jan 2023
Caffe Destino, Portland, OR, Oct 2022
Sarah Bellum’s, Portland, OR, Jun 2021
“Serious Play”, Sip D’Vine, Portland, OR, Mar-Sep 2020
“New Drawings”, Village Coffee, Portland, OR, Feb 2020
Caffe Destino, Portland, OR, 2019
Selected Group Exhibitions:
Oregon A-Z, Oregon Jewish Museum & Center for Holocaust Education, Portland, OR, Apr 7, 2024
Surprise Party: Abstract Only, Ford Gallery, Portland, OR, Oct-Nov 2023
Art/Lab inaugural exhibition, Eastside Jewish Commons, Portland, OR, Jun 2022
Press:
“The Children We Grieve: Buzzy's Bees nonprofit transforms grief, loss into art for families overcoming the death of a child”, Nov. 7, 2021
Awards/Honors:
Emerging Artist, Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts, Lake Oswego, OR, Jun 2022
Continuing Education:
Founding participating artist, Art/Lab, Portland OR, 2021-2022
Collections:
Private Corporate Collection, Bank of America, multiple sites
Private collection, individual collectors
Publications:
Short Fiction
“Kali Box”, Greensboro Review, Fall 2022
“12:12”, Pacifica Literary Review, Spring 2022
Professional Affiliations:
ORA Northwest Jewish Artists, 2022-present