ArtiGras Podcast · ArtiGras Fine Arts Festival

Turning Addiction into Art with Scott Jeffries

·1 hr 17 min·5 clips

Scott says he got sober in 2006 after "shooting heroin" and "smoking crack."

Scott Jeffries enters the episode more like an old friend than a guest. Sarah LaPierre introduces him with real warmth, then notices the first useful clue: even his clothes carry art he made himself. For Scott, that kind of self-representation matters. Selling the work is not treated like a hard pitch here. It sounds more like letting people see what can happen when someone is willing to make something and stand beside it. The talk soon moves from presentation into practice. Scott pushes back on the habit of copying from a phone. Put the screen down, he says in effect, and start with what is already there. Sarah catches the connection right away. She links that move to removing alcohol too, because both can become outside sources people lean on before they trust themselves. Scott meets that idea calmly. The blank canvas is the point. Nothing is there yet, and then something is. Fear gets named without making it heavy. Scott talks about the worry that a painting will come out wrong, especially with kids who want to throw the whole thing away after one unsure stroke. Sarah remembers those kids arriving with that exact disappointment. She brings in advice from her father about not judging the piece too harshly. If one painting feels off, the next one becomes the place to use what the first one taught. That lands well because the whole conversation has that same patience. Mistakes are not trash here. They are part of the making. The ending keeps the local, open-door feel. Scott points people toward his Instagram, website, gallery website, Aqua, Satellite, and a Tuesday night painting gathering with tacos. The episode leaves art feeling social, forgiving, and close by, especially for anyone trying to trust their own hand again.

As heard by us

A calm arts conversation about making, teaching, and learning by repetition.

Scott Jeffries talks like someone who has actually made the thing, sold the thing, and sat with the blank page anyway. The appeal is in that plainness: making from scratch, trusting people to create without much outside permission, and treating the work as something lived in…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a calm, encouraging Palm Beach County arts conversation about trusting the blank canvas.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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