Company Background:

WINGIN’ IT began in 2003 as a subscription-based newsletter to promote the art and interests of Jacqueline Ernst and publicize events at Pig Wings & Promises, her studio and showroom. Ernst’s background in copywriting and graphic design quickly infused her informative articles about art history with interactive visuals that increasingly featured hand productions like pop ups, cut out reveals, intricate folds, and moving parts. Her quarterly releases were published in limited editions of 100. The depth of Jacqueline’s research also increased as history articles lengthened into 40-page illustrated monographs. Still the subscribers’ playground grew to include templates and instructions for making art projects Jacqueline designed to inspire better understanding of the subjects she addressed. As Jacqueline’s repertoire of published monographs increased to 4 Volumes of 12 issues each, the publication’s name became a recognized imprint of Pig Wings & Promises. WINGIN’ IT continues to evince Ernst’s natural curiosity, insight, humor, and story-telling skills to convey the History of Art as she reveals the Art of History through innovative, often sculptural, illustrated, hand bound monographs. Instead of an overwhelming and stressful quarterly release schedule, each technically challenging, hand made edition is delivered as completed. Perfection and hand production takes as long as it takes. Subscribers receive a total of 4 issues whose entertainment value, attention to detail, quality craftsmanship, and yet more complex hand production have become a hallmark of the WINGIN’ IT experience. Subscribers now consider themselves investors in an evolving enterprise dedicated to delivering focused, in-depth studies that are intimately engaging, visually compelling, and technically masterful contributions to the fine art of book making.


Company Mission Statement:

Explore the History of Art. Discover the Art of History.

WINGIN’ IT's mandate affirms the importance of history and literary pursuits through informative, entertaining, inspiring and innovative hand bound monographs by artist and author Jacqueline Ernst. The publisher strives to meet the discerning expectations of Artist Book Collectors through high quality craftsmanship, depth of research, literary excellence, and innovative design.

Company Principal:

Artist and Author, Jacqueline Ernst, is publisher and principal contact. Visitors to her busy studio and showroom, Pig Wings & Promises, soon fall under the spell of her ‘can-do’ attitude and whimsical humor. Here is a woman who dances with dogs, believes pigs fly, paints with clothes dryer lint, and advises corporate executives on producing their print, radio, and outdoor advertising campaigns.

Jaki is a native of the San Francisco Bay area (b. 1950). Her formal education focused on art history and creative writing (Universita Pera Stranieri, Perugia, Italy and University of California at Santa Barbara), augmented by marketing and interior design through a full scholarship to Bauder College for Women, Sacramento, California). Twenty-five years as a copywriter, graphic designer, and agency principal serving major corporations including Acuson, Advanced Micro Devices, Monsanto, Syntex Labs and Almaden Vineyards, coincided with exhibitions and sale of illustrative fiber art throughout the Pacific Northwest. Ernst was represented by Contemporary Artisans Gallery, San Francisco, and to the trade by Art Showplace, Seattle, Washington during the 1980s when craftspeople struggled to be recognized alongside fine artists.

The turning point in Jaki’s career came with the discovery that her illustrated, hand-made books were part of a long and venerable history of collaborations between artists, authors, printers, and binders supported by individual and institutional collectors. Her needlecraft, graphics, writing, and watercolor illustration merged into a unified art form recognized as Artist Books. Ernst’s atelier and showroom with a winged dancing pig as its logo opened in 1986 as a statement that, against serious odds, she had finally found her métier. Exhibitions of her Artist Books ensued, followed with representation by Illahe Studios and Gallery, Ashland, Oregon, until the owner retired in 2015. Ernst continues to refine her passion for writing and illustrating books and keeps her dancing pigs airborne by actively exceeding expectations of her subscribers and expanding her audience.

When not making art, researching history, and writing, Ernst is an accomplished West Coast Swing dancer who enjoys reading and traveling with her sketch journal


Artist’s Statement:

Jacqueline Ernst’s work incorporates traditional and nontraditional materials and book forms. Her unique and limited editions are often sculptural delights in which stories are told through a volume’s shape, materials, and layout of text and illustrations. Subscription-based, hand bound monographs published under the WINGIN’ IT imprint unite her literary and design skills with her passion for researching obscure aspects of history. Entertainment value, quality materials, masterful word craft and labor intensive hand production are hallmarks of Ernst’s Artist Books.