Guest Service Agent Moonlights as an Artist

Devin Pigg, guest service agent at the Fairfield Inn St. Louis Collinsville, IL, has been an artist since he was a kid, but it wasn’t until he was 14 and entering high school that he started taking art a bit more seriously and decided he wanted to become an art teacher.

When he’s not busy delivering excellent guest service experiences at work, Devin studies art education at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.  He expects to become a fully licensed art educator in a year.

When it comes to art, Devin considers himself a “jack of all trades,” working with several different art mediums, including painting, print-making, drawing and metal-smithing. He makes jewelry and creates unique indigo-dyed fabrics while implementing different shibori cultural methods — a Japanese dyeing technique used on textiles to create one-of-a-kind patterns that spread unevenly across the cloth.

“All my artwork is done without any reference image and is fully accomplished by automatism,” he said. “Surrealist automatism is a method of artmaking in which the artist suppresses conscious control over the creating process, allowing the unconscious mind to lead the work. This method always leads to interesting abstract art pieces that fill every little blank space with the canvas I’m working on. I love it.”

Devin’s artwork has been displayed in art shows, local coffee shops, bars, galleries on the school’s campus and a solo show at Rend Lake College in Ina, Illinois. He is sometimes commissioned as an artist and enjoys the challenge of creating custom pieces for customers.

“I love challenging myself with art and making clients happy with the final product that I deliver,” he said. “Seeing their faces light up when they receive the artwork fills me with bliss. Art is a subject that I will always continue to achieve professionally and as a hobby. I love what I do, and I can’t wait to create more as the years go on.”

Here are some additional examples of Devin’s work: