My name is Janel Young.

I go by JY Originals.

I am an artist, muralist, creator, and artist advocate I would say.

People often ask me how did I get into art?

But I honestly think, like art found me.

Like, I don't really remember a moment where I started creating.

I think it was just because I was so young, but I think that maybe around third grade I kind of really was into like coloring and like making my own characters and things like that.

And one of my art teachers in elementary school, she encouraged me to like, learn different techniques and new things.

So she kind of took me under her wing.

And she then told my parents that maybe I should go to art camp, which I didn't really know was a thing.

I ended up going to an art camp at Rogers CAPA, then actually applying to go to Rogers and got in, and was a visual arts major for middle school, 6-8th grade.

Once a week we would go literally on Tuesdays we would go off site, and it was a group of us, a small group and we would create a mural together as like a group and we would implement.

So quite a different experience for me, like being able to do that, but it really did kind of kickstart my brain into like, oh, I can create things that are large scale.

And then I realized how much I actually enjoyed, like painting itself, like the physical part of it.

And I carried that with me, like through the rest of my life.

The journey of creating public art is challenging.

It is testing.

There are so many factors that people just don't see that the things that are happening behind the scenes.

I like to say that painting is like 10% of the job, even though that's the part that has been most public.

And what most people see for me personally, projects usually start 3 to 6 months before the actual painting even begins.

So there's like a conversation that has to happen with a client.

Or perhaps I'm applying for something.

Maybe there's like a request for qualifications out there.

And so I'm submitting my my artwork, my work samples.

Maybe there's some writing that goes along with it to essentially give an idea of what I'm capable of and what I would like to do and present in whatever context or site that is.

I am originally from Pittsburgh, so I love being here to do work and projects, even though I've moved to several other cities, I always come home to do work and honestly, the art scene had changed so much like from when I first started doing art, you know, as a kid in middle school and then even high school.

People in Pittsburgh had no clue that I was an artist.

So that was actually a huge challenge for me that I embraced.

One of the first projects I did when I came back from New York was the first basketball court in Beltzhoover the home Court Advantage projects.

And Jamil Bey, also from Beltzhoover also knows my family very well.

You know, he was calling me and saying, like, okay, you're doing these murals in like, Brooklyn and Harlem, like, when does Pittsburgh get?

And I'm like, look, if you help me find a way, I will make it happen.

And that's what we did.

So that was the basketball court.

The Beltzhoover Consensus Group rallied behind me for that.

And after that, I felt like I was kind of put back on the map in Pittsburgh and then in a different light.

As an artist, I've had a few really great projects.

People come up to me and say like, oh, you're the person who did this.

Like, I saw this and it made me feel x, y, z. And that to me is everything.

You know, I just it fills my heart when there's like, kids who can see a public artist working and doing their job and they can say, like, this is something to aspire to.

This is something that's like a valid career.

Make sure it's noted that you do not have to necessarily do this full time to be who you are.

I took so many valuable lessons from working a corporate job before becoming a full time artist, and I did both for a little while, and it's helped me tremendously.

I think that Pittsburgh deserves good public art, and if I'm able to contribute to that, like, I'm not going to say no.