Since 1996, Jayme McLellan has been making her own work and supporting others’ through her activities as a curator, activist, educator, and gallery director. The brevity of life drives her career, as she describes: “My work in the arts, as an artist, curator, teacher, administrator, activist, all of it comes from the same place—that our lives are fairly short.” McLellan is especially drawn to artists whose work embraces and responds to the world, in all of its beauty and tragedy. She founded two galleries in support of such work, both in Washington, D.C.: Transformer, a not-for-profit experimental art space, and Civilian Art Projects, a commercial contemporary art gallery. Among her own projects is Jealousy of Clouds (2013), an installation of photographs, videos, and text focused on clouds, based on Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist parable about finding wholeness within oneself.