Check Out Ivan Jenson’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ivan Jenson

Hi Ivan, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I am a pop artist, author, poet, and screenwriter. I started at an early age. When I was nine years old, my family visited Costa Rica. I was a bit hyperactive, and my parents wanted to temporarily place me somewhere where I could direct my artistic energy. Since they were well aware that I was a Michelangelo fanatic, they put me in a sculpture class. My first sculpture impressed the faculty so much it was used as the poster for the National exhibit. I wrote my first novel at 14 years old, published poetry in my teens, and took up songwriting for some time. But my first big break came in New York when I was twenty-one. On a whim, I decided to take some quickly and spontaneously-made paintings on paper to Times Square where I hung them up on a clothesline with cloth pins. Instantly New Yorkers took to my colorful and graphic pop art style, and I sold all of my paintings. So, I instantly quit my job as a wedding caterer, and within a few months I moved out of my parents’ home and had my first solo gallery show in downtown Manhattan which was featured on Nippon News in Japan. As luck would have it, I had caught the East Village Art Wave of the 80s and became an overnight success. I displayed a giant ten-foot by ten-foot painting called “Man of the 80s” at the world-famous night club called the Palladium. It radically depicted a portrait of an ‘everyman’ with green hair and blue lips. That exposure led to a feature profile about me and my art on CBS News and NBC News in New York. A chance meeting led me to befriending the publishing tycoon Malcolm Forbes. He hired me to come aboard his famous Highlander yacht to draw quick pop art portrait sketches of his millionaire and billionaire guests. I painted the last commissioned portrait of Malcolm Forbes before he sadly passed away. I also painted an Absolut ad, entitled ‘Absolut Jenson’ which put me in the company of Keith Haring and Andy Warhol. My Marlboro Man painting was purchased to be in the Philip Morris corporate collection.
Recently, I wrote about all my adventures and misadventures in the art world in my soon-to-be re-released memoir, East Of Ivan. A media company in Hollywood approached me to adapt my life story into a biopic.
After making a living in the high-stress, fast lane of the art world for seventeen years, a transformative nervous breakdown knocked me out of New York and brought me to Grand Rapids, Michigan, to be near family to recover. At first, I suffered from cultural shock. Then, once again on a whim, I joined a writer’s group which met up on Thursdays at a local Barnes and Noble. I soon learned that my poetry was getting a great response. A former girlfriend told me that she felt I was as good as any poet out there in the current contemporary poetry scene. Then my sister paid me to read my poetry at an event in her house. Once again, I got an unusually great response. That night, tipsy on a glass or two of red wine, I decided to submit my poetry to a few online magazines, and thought nothing more of it. Two weeks later, my poems were accepted by all three publications. Fast forward, and I have now had over one thousand poems published worldwide. My latest poetry collection, entitled Mundane Miracles, has been released by a UK publisher. It reached number one in American Poetry on the Amazon bestseller list. My poems opened the door to getting my novels published. I have two new thrillers which are currently charting on the Amazon best-seller list, Not Nice Wife and Weeping Beauty. And I have an autobiographical coming-of-age novel which is packed with 80s nostalgia called “Gypsies of New Rochelle” which will be published this Christmas. More novels will be coming out later this winter and spring.
I signed with a producer/director in Los Angeles to have my hard-hitting family drama screenplay, Contessa, made into a movie. It is about a family confrontation that all takes place in a single night. It is filled with verbal fireworks.
I just signed with another producer to have my thriller/drama screenplay, Mom Has 7 Days to Live, also made into a movie. This feature will go into production this summer. It is about how one dysfunctional family deals with their mother’s imminent passing.
I am currently shopping a Rom Com Screenplay called Coinkydink about an author named Bing Cassidy who wakes up in Michigan during the Christmas Holidays and catches a flight to New York City, where he enters a world of personal coincidences which reveal to him the hidden meaning to his crazy life. With time-looping structure, funny dialogue, and a series of quirky love interests, this story takes synchronicity and serendipity to funny and entertaining new heights. If there is a production company out there interested in this screenplay, feel free to contact me.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
When I first came to Grand Rapids, Michigan, from New York City, naturally it took some adjustments. Like a typical New Yorker, I didn’t even know how to drive.
Yet I had an artistic awakening here. Being in Michigan gave me a perspective on my Manhattan days, and vice versa. This all led to a perfect storm of creativity and a recharging of my creativity.
I have been able to use the material right here at my front door. My two domestic thrillers, Not Nice Wife and Weeping Beauty, both take place in Grand Rapids. Not Nice Wife is a female-centric thriller. It features 39-year-old Becca Garner, a “happily” married woman with a devoted husband and two teen daughters, who is an unreliable narrator and leads a double life as a lovable sociopath. Weeping Beauty is about a beautiful young woman named Sylvia who survived an attempt on her life and seeks healing with a local psychiatrist. However, her psychiatrist becomes obsessed with her and begins to stalk her.
There have been challenges to kick-starting my new literary career. One was how to break through into the industry. Ironically, it has been my poetry which became my winning ticket. Who would have thought that poetry could do such a thing? Yet it was my poems that first broke down the doors to the publishing world. Three of my poems have even been adapted into short films.
I am of course used to the bustling New York City life, and I do include all that in my novels and poetry. But I have found the time and the space to build my new career here in Michigan.
My pattern in Grand Rapids is to paint in the spring, summer, and fall, and in the winter months hunker down and write poetry, novels, and screenplays.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am a screenwriter, fine artist, novelist, and popular contemporary poet in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My artwork was featured in Art in America, Art News, and Interview Magazine, and has sold at auction at Christie’s. My commissions include the final portrait of the late Malcolm Forbes and a painting titled “Absolut Jenson” for Absolut Vodka’s national ad campaign. My Absolut paintings are in the collection of the Spritmuseum, the museum of spirits in Stockholm, Sweden. My painting of the “Marlboro Man” was collected by the Philip Morris corporation. My novels, Dead Artist and Seeing Soriah, illustrate the creative, often dramatic lives of artists. My poetry is widely published (with over 1,000 poems published in the US, UK, and Europe) in a variety of literary media. I have published two poetry books, Media Child and Other Poems, and my latest, Mundane Miracles.

Two of my screenplays have been optioned and one, titled Mom has 7 Days to live, is going into production this Summer. Mundane Miracles, my critically-acclaimed poetry collection, hit number 1 on Amazon in American Poetry. My two thrillers, Not Nice Wife and Weeping Beauty, are both currently charting on the Amazon Bestseller list. And I am happy to announce that my new coming-of-age novel packed with 80s nostalgia, Gypsies of New Rochelle, will be released any day now.

Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
I have learned that it is never too late for one’s dreams to come true. When I came to Michigan, I was burnt out from my tumultuous career in New York City. Yet coming here has been the best thing that could happen to my art and my writing. Disappearing from the fast lane increased the value of my paintings. I remember years ago when I was crashing at my mom’s house, and she received a call from a girl named Christie in New York and she thought it might be an ex of mine. However, she was comically mistaken. Turns out it was a representative of Christie’s Auction house and one my Absolut Vodka paintings on canvas was coming up at auction. It sold for a record price.
After my mother passed away, I knew it was time to set it all down in my memoir, East of Ivan. My journey was hilarious, heartbreaking, and heart-stopping all at once. Hollywood came knocking on my door for the bio pic rights. That deal did not work out, but when one door closes, another opens, and now with two of my screenplays going into production, I am sure the powers-that-be will approach me to make a feature out of my artistic journey once again.
Just like my screenplay Coinkydink, I believe my life has been a series of coincidences that I had to seize. In the 90s I wrote a screenplay called Clicking about a guy who is struck by lightning, and his life starts to “click.”
My poetry was that stroke of lightning luck that I needed to light the fire.
I reach inside myself to create art and poetry, novels and screenplays, and then I reach out to connect with the world.
I have reinvented myself in Michigan. I guess you could call me a Grand Rapidian Renaissance man.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.ivanjenson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ivanjenson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ivan.jenson/
• Twitter: https://x.com/ivanjenson