Cases to Canvas

ART CLASSES TURN A LAWYER INTO A PAINTER

In her D.C. studio, Shahrzad Heyat Jalinous works in oils and acrylics. (Michelle Repiso -- Express)

Shahrzad Heyat Jalinous wrote many thousands of words during and after law school. Now she practices art, not law. So does she find that a picture is worth a thousand words?

More than that, it seems. "I always saw art as something I needed to do," said Jalinous, 36. "I just didn't see it was what I was meant to do."

You might say artists are born, not made. In a way, that's true: As early as kindergarten, Jalinous said, "it was very important to me that my drawings be the best they could be. In my head I was criticizing other children's stick figures: 'People don't look like that!' "

But training is necessary, too. During undergrad work at Georgetown University, she started taking classes like life-drawing, oil painting and acrylic painting at the Corcoran College of Art + Design - "a wonderful art-school environment," she said - and loved them.

"Somewhere, you need to get the skills," Jalinous said, "Though not necessarily a degree."

After completing her bachelor's degree, the international-relations major went straight to Georgetown Law Center. She did summer work at the law firm Stewart and Stewart and at the U.S. Treasury Department, and passed the bar. She started work in litigation and commercial real estate transactions for a solo practitioner. "It was very challenging, in a good way," she said, "solving problems and critical thinking."

After four years of casework, though, "I would wake up with my teeth clenched because it was so stressful. Litigation has so many little details, and they change by jurisdiction. I would check something 10 times just to be sure I had it right."

During law school, she'd stopped the art lessons. Afterward, she began again on Saturdays with "Life Drawing" and has kept going, taking perhaps 30 Corcoran classes in all.

"Three hours with a live model - you can't really do that at home," she explained. "You have to have the background of the old masters to be able to draw the human figure in an expressive way. In a decade or two, maybe I'll feel I don't need to take [the class] anymore."

Her Northwest Washington house had a detached garage, and she eyed it as a potential studio. "We started fixing it up," she said. Finally, "when that place was finished, I realized, "Stop! This is what I want to be doing as a job for the rest of my life." She gave notice at work and set up her canvases. "I'd started entering juried competitions, so it wasn't so far-fetched," she said. "I haven't looked back."

Her husband, also a lawyer, was supportive. "He tells me, 'I can't wait until you sell your paintings for $100,000 so I can quit my job too.' "

Her works haven't gotten to that price yet, but the Iranian-born Jalinous had two month-long exhibitions at D.C.'s now-shuttered Spectrum Gallery, and both shows sold out. One buyer commissioned a large painting. "It's very gratifying to have perfect strangers love what you do," Jalinous said.

"She's first-rate; her work has a personal poetry to it," said former Spectrum director John Blee, now director of Dupont Circle's Studio Gallery. "She's proved very successful in making the switch."

"I've never regretted law school; it gives you unique training to think," she said. "You can deal with people on a business level in a more confident way." Law and art have some things in common, too. When crafting a response to a motion, "you have to look at ways you can do what the other side says you can't." Plus, "I stand in front of my canvas and take in all the problems - then stop thinking and just do."