Transcript
What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. My name is Jim Russell, and I am the retired deputy chief of police at the Florida University Police Department, and I am a lifelong artist and a driven advocate for helping people. And I think if anyone were to relate me to a particular term, I think I would wanna be known as a helper. I didn't know it, but starting in my teen years, I developed major depression. And in my artwork, even leading up into college, and then after I started my career in law enforcement, I did a lot of paintings that were very emotive. And I didn't think about them as being a reflection of where I was mentally. I thought I was just being expressive in my art. My art's been a tool for my advocacy. Law enforcement's been a tool for my advocacy. When I got help, I realized that I was in a position to help other law enforcement officers and to help people in general. I feel I'm successful if I'm able to have a person look at a painting that I do and feel the equivalent emotion that I felt in the moment that I did the painting. And I heard this somewhere and I forget who said it, they said art isn't so much expression as it is communication. And I love that because I feel like it's a way for me to communicate with people apart from words or explaining or writing about it. It's just my means to communicate. And so it's Jim's form of communication. My biggest supporter is my wife, Connie. Just yesterday, I was talking to her about operating this business through the COVID era. And she was steadfast and 100% behind me. She is like, I want it to succeed. I want you to keep the studio up and running. We'll do what we need to do. And that's so important for an artist. So she keeps me going. My name is Jim Russell and I am a passionate artist. You're listening to voices that inspire.