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When Jenny Lam was 8, she turned down a job offer from Walt Disney Animation Studios.
Her father had mailed sketches of her cartoon cats to three Disney animators, including Eric Goldberg, who drew the Genie in “Aladdin.” Soon after, Lam’s mother received a phone call from Goldberg. He invited Lam and her parents to visit him in Burbank, California.
Lam was on winter vacation, and Goldberg took time out of his break to see her and her family. After flying to the Disney studio, she and Goldberg drew and swapped their cartoon sketches, and he told her she could be a storyboard artist there when she turned 18.
Her response: “But I want to go to college first.”
“That’s how I’ve been through everything, running it on my own and winging it,” she explained over Zoom. “Trial and error. Figuring things out as I go.”
Ever since then, Lam has taken “being fiercely independent” very seriously — and the 35-year-old artist and curator is thriving in the arts, especially photography. This May, during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, Lam is having a solo art show at the main branch of the Chicago Public Library, featuring 12 photographs she has taken around the city over the past decade with her iPhone 5s. Starting in September, some of her other iPhone 5s photography will be on display in two international exhibitions in South Korea and Italy.
As Lam carves her own path, she is also championing other artists. In her latest online exhibition “Hygge,” which opened in January, she spotlights 30 artists worldwide and showcases their artwork on Artists on the Lam, a blog and platform to support and gather other talented people.
Over the years, Lam has held exhibitions in odd places: the basement of a chapel, a former bank building and a loft above a now-defunct shoe store. She’s also curated many imaginative and rule-breaking shows. In “I Can Do That,” she…
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