James Allen (Jim) Wojtowicz (born 1965)

Jim and his art: Select notebooks displayed under an enlarged spread from one of them; random thoughts on a calendar page; collage from the childhood reflection series “1970-2023”; and a card format single thought.

Creativity has always been an important part of my life.

My dad was a welder who could fix and build anything and my mom had an amazing aesthetic and made everything she touched into something beautiful.  Growing up in a small town in Massachusetts, I always gravitated to the misfits who didn’t quite fit in who made fun, weird drawings and paintings as a form of self-therapy. I didn’t know it then, but my direction as an artist was forged by a combination of all those factors.

PURGE is my first solo show.   (Jim Wojtowicz on October 18, 2025)

Announcing Jim’s exhibit.

Jim Wojtowicz calls himself a “scribbler” and describes his art as collage. He scribbles primarily to stay focused in the everyday, but this in turn has become the foundation for his emotional “purging” as he calls it.  From his restless daytime scribblings while doing other things, on subsequent days he layers on the scribbles random colors and more deliberate lines and memorabilia along with other “interesting things” in the service of the collage effects until this outpouring has created a mostly unplanned image that pleases him. Then he starts enhancing another scribble.

Jim clearly remembers a day in kindergarten when he had crayoned a picture that had not only pleased him but then a teacher had said that this picture was “great.” That was a first for him, to realize that creating art was not only fascinating for his five-year-old self, it could generate appreciative attention from others.

In college at California’s ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, Jim chose to major in Design. However, he came to feel that this singular focus on structure lacked either the message or the freedom of creativity he sought.  He eventually settled on Advertising as encompassing both his needs and his talents, along with providing an enjoyable avenue to earn an acceptable living.

After graduating from college Jim stayed in California until recently, mainly in Los Angeles and San Francisco, working primarily in advertising and college-level teaching. During those years and still ongoing, he has used a succession of large notebooks in which to scribble during the day, or maybe a calendar page still visible under some of his works just because calendars were closest to him in a scribbling moment, or small cards and other paper surfaces. Whatever the canvas, at the end of each day good or bad equally, he unloads onto the scribbles as a kind of emotional release.

At a work-day staff committee meeting, Jim by chance seated in front of his series “1970-2023.” The space was once a clothing store, hence the mirrors.

For the creative expansion of his scribblings, Jim again uses whatever he happens to have easily available. In addition to traditional art media such as watercolors and a range of wax and clay crayons, he particularly favors unexpected materials that tease the viewer to ask “what is that?”

Jim’s first unexpected and still a favorite non-art fluid medium was White-Out correction fluid, and others have included house paint, shoe polish, wood varnish, and an accidental spill of a sugary soda, while his collage additions include remnants of Starbucks cups, airplane boarding passes, snippets of a blue and yellow IKEA shopping bag, and pretty much any other stray bits from his life. He creates layers upon layers, sometimes aiming for a 3D effect on a 2D surface, mashing up the many materials, “forcing serendipity” to end up with something he had not expected that satisfies even more.

And if he does not like a work, he saves it and returns to it later for more attention. If he still does not like it, he may use cut-up pieces of it as future collage elements.

Although it has been an intensive journey from his kindergarten revelation, Jim notes about his current art that “If you care about it, OK, but it doesn’t matter to me.” That is, approbation from others is no longer his principal ambition. For Jim, creativity is both an expressive tool and a fundamental need, and remains the core of everything else he does.

Jim was invited to select and display the works for the first On the Go exhibit at HMA’s Temporary Satellite Museum at Hickory’s Valley Hills Mall, from early September to October 26, 2025. At the opening reception of the gallery (pictured above), Jim talked informally about his art, and independent creativity activities were provided for all visitors.

Jim as HMA Visitor Engagement Specialist for HMA’s Virgil Ortiz and Catawba Nations exhibits in mid-2025.

Other local artists will be featured in the satellite museum space during subsequent months of HMA’s reconstruction year for its home location in the SALT Block’s one-time high school building.

 For more of Jim’s artwork, see  his Instagram account. It includes snippets from his show’s installation and an overview scan.