Business Spotlight: Jeff Bossler’s Art and Hard Work a Super Combo

 — by Margie Doyle —

Jeff Bossler, Orcas landscaper, government activist, artist, photographer and international explorer, has now added internet marketer to his resume.

Jeff Bossler wearing his other hat, as landscaper and weed-eater

After years of raising children, building a house, landscape gardening, public service and hard work, Jeff now has gone in a new direction, “re-visiting his artist self.”

He has learned to digitally remaster some of his old pen drawings and place them online, He’s also developed his photographic images through digital manipulation and abstract compositions.  He says, “It’s so gratifying to take an old drawing I did in grade school and breathe new life into it with tools that were not available to me when I did the original work.”

His work is diverse and genre-less, and an expression of his work ethic and personality — “I’m so full of images and creativity!” he says,

Although he adds, “My problem is I’m just an artist, not a salesperson,” he has found a market for his artistic images through Society 6, a global online artists community. At the site, https://society6.com/alpineseasidelandscapes/, seven collections display his diversity available as

• Framed and unframed prints
• stretched canvases
• T-shirts
• pillows
• tote bags
• duvet covers
• mugs
• leggings

Leggings are the latest expression of Jeff Bossler’s artwork

He is particularly excited about the leggings designed from his original artwork. From Alpine Seaside Landscape site https://society6.com/alpineseasidelandscapes/ he writes, “Our proprietary six-panel cut and sew construction provides an unprecedented quality in fit and versatility with an adjustable waist line for wearing high, low or somewhere in between. Using the highest quality anti-microbial polyester spandex material, these premium leggings wick moisture and remain breathable, making them perfect for running or runways.” The leggings retail for $39.

Bossler says, “For all that my work covers many genres, all of my work by hand as well as camera and computer is similar in the following ways:

• All have their origin in nature
• Items made by humans are always rustic and weathered
• All portray a sense of beauty or “heightened reality”
• Humans and animals are almost never a part of my image

His artistic images are on exhibit at Islanders Bank (where he filled in for another artist last month and where he will have his own show in October) and at Enzo’s Cafe in Eastsound. A line of his greeting cards are available at  at Ray’s Pharmacy, Island Market and Deer Harbor Marina, and online at https://www.greetingcarduniverse.com/alpineseaside. Bossler dedicates dedicates 10% of the profits from sales on that site to vision causes.

“All I do, is I’m the artist — if by artist you mean creator, marketer, and digital editor.”

Bossler’s art stems not only from his imagination and craft, but also from gratitude. “I’ve known from an early age what a gift my eyesight is. I don’t take it for granted but regard it as a gift in a major, major way.

The work of the young Jeff Bossler, on display at Enzo’s. He says of this work, “This is a pen drawing of mine from my elementary school days – digitally remastered, cleaned up and framed by a digital border”

“It’s allowed me to have a different perspective on what I was seeing, allowed me to create all these other spaces.”

Drawing had long been a refuge for him from teasing bullies who made fun of his “coke-bottle” glasses (he was born with cataracts on both eyes) and ineptitude at athletics. His art was totally self-taught. HIs family was poor, and grew their own food out of necessity. An outsider and a daydreamer, Jeff would draw behind stack of books on his desk.

And he had an ally in his dad.”’He taught me when I was experiencing bad things to look to the good, to imagine that things were better.  I never went to the dark, but would draw scenes from my  imagination.”

Sometimes his Dad’s advice was so simple, that Jeff didn’t understand wheat he meant until he had grown up. Faced with the bullying at school his Dad taught him, “If you want to change the world, change yourself.”

As he recounts the story of a high school ambush when the bullying stopped, he says, “I realized I had the power to change.

“One day during gym class, a group of the biggest boys ambushed me on the edge of the running track and were ready to beat me. I remember making the choice to only see the good in them even if it wasn’t showing.  I had already been thrown to the ground, and with all my might I was projecting love toward them all. Fists were drawn and insults were made, but now all I could see was a flood of white light. There was what seemed to be a long silence.

“Suddenly I was drawn back into the event as one of them said; ‘Oh my God – what are we doing this for?’  I continued to flood them with white light as they ran away…  I felt my glasses lying beside me – unbroken.  I put them on to see the boy’s images much larger, and realized they never had a clue as to how large they truly were for turning back.

“And I learned to love and respect my ‘enemies’ because they have bad things in their own life and have been made to feel powerless when they became bullies.Those were the kind of things my dad taught me. We make choices and decisions that affect us the rest of our lives.”

Jeff and Bonnie Bossler

Jeff’s life choices have always included hard work, starting at age 13, when he worked at a nursery weeding and hoeing, “backbreaking work,” that was six miles away from his home. He rode his bike to and from the job. In high school he worked after-school jobs.

His Dad’s death in 1971 was the match that lit the fire for Jeff to advance his paintings and drawings with pen, pencil and charcoal. He bartered many of those images away, and several more in one collection were destroyed in a house fire.

He went on to work for the Forest Service as a “hot-shot” interstate firefighter.

During the summer he would draw in a sketch book with pall point pens, with plans to revisit the concepts later .The images he created with such mundane tools as a bic ballpoint pen are intricate and fanciful. “I’ve always wanted to stretch my imagination,” he says, “and almost everything I do has an aspect of heightened reality. And I have confidence in my perceptions of reality. I don’t talk about it that much; to me it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, To me, it’s mostly a matter of what we perceive.”

He’s had the desire since childhood to live in northwestern Washington. He’s also had a lifelong love for the mountains and has traveled to the Himalayas four times, the last time in  October 2014, accompanied for the first time by his wife Bonnie. Commenting on the earthquakes that have devastated Nepal this spring, Bossler says, “Flying into Katmandhu, I had the distinct feeling, ‘I I wonder if this will be the time of the earthquakes.’  I accepted that this is a major possibility.”

Now he is getting first-hand information from students at the medical center that he helped build in 2002,  through brightfuturesfoundation.org.  He’s been a board member for over seven years.

Last week, Bossler wrote: “We’ll be rebuilding the Bhotechaur Health Clinic. It will be a long road ahead, but totally worth it. I’m always impressed with how the people of Nepal work together even in the worst of times. They take the ball and run with it, and their optimism is based in their patience, moral, and physical endurance. This is why I, who only made $18,000 last year still found reason to spend my hard earned money to go for the fourth time last November to be with my “extended Nepali family.” These people and their community, exactly on the opposite side of the globe, deserve any support you can give. It’s a great way to give your world a big hug!” (To help in this effort, go to https://www.brightfuturesfoundation.org/DONATE_NOW_.php )

Jeff and his wife Bonnie moved here with just $250 dollars between them, a job and a place to stay. In time they paid $5,000 for  a piece of land and moved to it, building their house, and raising two children, now in their 20s. “I’ve always been a really hard worker and enjoy every minute of it. We all fall into hard times sometimes, but ‘poor me’ doesn’t work for me.”

His appreciation for his home translates into public service. He created and distributed a Spanish language survey earlier this decade, and was a stakeholder in the 2005 County Home Rule Charter formation, participating in discussions and hearings throughout the county for much of that year.

“I always feel I’m in a sense of celebration. My new artwork gives me the joy of going far beyond what I had ever dreamed of, from expressing new concepts to just celebrating the great beauty that we too often miss in the rush of everyday life.”

“My philosophy is, you’ll never do everything you want to do, so you’ve got to do most of it!”