Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Quijano.
Hi Jon, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota. I don’t know, I’ve always been artistic. I liked drawing and recording little songs into the boombox in the 80s. My dad was artistic, a photographer, so maybe that’s where I got permission. My grandpa on my mom’s side also loved cameras.
In North Dakota what I did was play music. As a teenager, I was the drummer and singer for Drevlow’s Disciples. It’s all mostly forgotten now, but I’d like to think they were a pretty important band in the Bismarck independent heavy rock scene of the late 90s. I moved to Minneapolis in 2003, but a vocal injury started hindering me.
Music was my first, serious period. But after music, I branched out. In my late 20s, I produced three historical documentaries, also serving screenwriter, as well as director on two. One of these films (Rosalie Wahl: Vision For a Better World) won a grand prize from the Minnesota State Historical Society and receives periodic broadcasts on TPT.
I’m my dad’s son, so I’ve always also been a photographer. Recently, I’ve had photographs featured in three different issues of St. Croix Valley Magazine.
I’m a poet. Early on, I discovered the poetry of American writers such as Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams, and Robert Lowell, and I began my own life as a poet. I studied creative writing in college at St. Cloud State University, won the campus writing award, and served as editor-in-chief of the campus literary journal. I wrote for many years in obscurity. In 2023 I finally at least published a book of my collected poems (The Time In Between) to my personal website.
Then for over a decade, I threw myself totally into my ultimate creative project: Raising my two sons. They’re teenagers now, and have their own creative projects beginning.
Only in the last year have I dared to think about new, more mature and ambitious creative projects: a new full-length documentary on the St. Croix Valley, a collection of St. Croix poetry and photography, and a new collection of music for performance.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I grew up with a single parent in apartments and low-income housing in North Dakota. There was never much money for lessons or equipment. As a musician, I am self-taught. And I played music with the cheapest equipment. I learned to be the best I could with the gear I had access to.
Still now as a photographer, I have had photos published that I took on my iPhone and even my old flip phone. And I relish the challenge of making any art with cheap gear, untraditional gear.
I have never had a family financial safety net to fall back on. This has led to large portions of my life being taken up with 9-to-5 work to earn a living and support my children. The time it takes to pay the bills and keep food on the table has meant sacrificing time to pursue my personal art.
This says nothing about the challenges all artists and creatives face as digital commodification and AI threaten to debase the value of all creative work. The dream of selling music or photography to economically self-support feels out of reach for myself and most other creatives.
But I remain determined to continually produce more mature and ambitious work. Ideally it is work that resonates with my local community, the unique and historic Stillwater, Minnesota, and the surrounding St. Croix Valley.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
From medium to medium—photography, poetry, film, music—I find myself trying to look at the wild soul (or whatever it actually is) and how it copes under the conditions we have created for ourselves in our modern world. I am a fan of finding transcendent lessons hidden in the seemingly mundane around us all.
As a photographer, I’m best known recently for the work I create in the St. Croix River Valley. I enjoy winter photography, taking my camera out on days of dramatic cold and blizzards. I also take a lot of shots of my family, especially my children, contemplating their personalities and spiritual evolution.
As a poet, I’m inspired to continue the spiritual project enacted by my American forbears, those great transcendentalists like Whitman, Dickinson, and 20th century poets they later inspired.
As a filmmaker, my documentaries mostly feature Minnesota subjects. My newest documentary is underway, and I intend to filter my themes of the soul through the subject of the St. Croix Valley, its nature, and its popular history.
As a songwriter, I wish I could rock as hard as I used to in my younger days, but my voice can’t hold up. In my later years, I’ve been inspired by artists who create mournful, dynamic chord progressions such as Radiohead, Elliott Smith, and Arcade Fire. I’m also trying to incorporate the Latin percussion that I’ve grown to love as I explore my Hispanic roots.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
I was the friend who introduced my friends to other friends to make bigger friend groups. My oldest friends I’ve known for four decades.
I was naturally a pretty serious, thoughtful kid. I remember feeling so proud when my mother called me wise. I have always been interested in looking for wisdom, from literature, religious writing, biographies, first-hand histories, and from the people I speak to every day.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jonquijano.com
- Instagram: @jon_q_studies
- Youtube: @jonqstudies
- Other: https://stillwaterweddingphotographer.com
