Florissant Valley Contemporary Art Gallery- Jessica Jones

EXHIBITING GALLERY: Florissant Valley Contemporary Art Gallery

TITLE OF SHOW: TEXTERE

OPENING DATE AND CLOSING DATE: September 8 - October 3, 2009

Reception: Thursday September 10, 6-8pm

IT8 bus tour: Saturday, October 3

CURATOR OR JUROR: Janice Nesser-Chu

SHORT BYLINE/ DESCRIPTION OF SHOW: Fiber work from the Appalachian Center for Craft, Tenn. Featuring the work of Jeanne Whitfield Brady, head of the Fibers Department, Jessica Jones and Aaron McIntosh, artists-in-residence and students: Deborah Tuggle, Bethany Kolp, Laura McCormack, Paula Rodgers, Emma Judd, Kristy Sullins, Kendall White, Lindsay Dunn, Dana Decereaux and Emma Self.

Florissant Valley Contemporary Art Gallery

STLCC-Florissant Valley, IR111 3400

Pershall Rd, St. Louis MO 63135

Gallery hours: M-F 10-4pm, Sat 10-3pm

Submitted by Artist: Jessica Jones

• Apart from creating things, what do you do?

I live and work on the campus of the Appalachian Center for Craft in Smithville, TN as the Artist in Residence for the Fibers Dept. The ACC is part of Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville and is on a satellite campus in a remote and exquisitely beautiful part of middle Tennessee on Center Hill Lake. My main responsibilities as an Artist in Residence include making a large body of work, managing the Fibers Studio (including purchasing and inventory), mentoring students, and generally providing support for the department. I spend a lot of time working for the Fibers Department and the Craft Center as a whole assisting during the regular semester of Tennessee Tech as well as participating in other programs such as Outreach with local schools, and Spring/ Summer/ Fall Workshops.

• Please describe your creative process: how you create, when, where, with what materials…

Having been trained in painting, drawing, printmaking, fibers, bookbinding, and papermaking, I find that I am the most comfortable with Fibers because it is within that field that I can incorporate all of my interests. Fiber is open and broad and allows me to use mixed media, which I have recently been incorporating into my quilts. When I start a new project, I have a sense of direction and tend to visualize something that I want to make. It is inevitably the case that this idea fails in some way and I have to end up rethinking what I am making. I am forced to listen to the materials and pay attention to what they want to be, not what I intended to make out of them. I end up with a nonlinear process that is more like a dialog with the work. Having many different techniques/ tools at my disposal is an advantage in this process.

• Name your top five: musicians, books, movies, websites, artists… (provide a link to websites or artists websites if at all possible)

I am very curious and passionate about learning new things, and I love new information that challenges and inspires me. I can easily edit down to a single item in each category that has influenced me the most –without a doubt- over the past few years.

1. Musicians: Adem (Love and Other Planets)

2. Books: Proust Was a Neuroscientist

3. Movie: How to Draw a Bunny

4. Website: Seed Magazine

5. Artist: Ray Johnson

I am going to add the category 6. Podcast: Radio Lab

I find that listening to Podcasts keeps my mind very active while I am working- and my interests lean towards the sciences.

• What are your favorite materials to work with?

I have two very different answers to this. In my most recent work, I am rediscovering old materials I used when I was a painter and printmaker: pastels, paint, crayons, etc. I love how these things interact with quilting- for example, the way that pastel looks when used over stitching. I am also interested in found material- material that has been used and worn, and has a texture that cannot be achieved in any other way but through time.

• What is the source of your creativity? How much is from within? How much comes from outside sources

I have an intense curiosity and need some idea to pursue to keep me driven to make art. I tend to obsessively research topics that interest me and this not only inspires me, but filters into my work in some way. I have always been very enamored with scientific research that attempts to explain some of the things that are part of my own experience. Sometimes I just have an idea like “what is time?” When I start to think about something—like how I experience and perceive time, I often research how people have constructed time differently in different cultures and how my brain understands the past, present and future, or what cosmologists think that time is. Then I start to see these ideas emerge in my work- and I start to think about how fibers can incorporate the idea of time. Essentially, my creative source is both inside influence (examining my own experience and staying curious) and outside influence (discovering new things when researching an idea).