Trenton ReynoldsThis is Dabalon. My name is Trent Reynolds, and in this podcast, I have conversations with artists about materials. If you are enjoying this podcast and want it to continue, please subscribe or make a one-time contribution at dabalon.com forward slash podcast. Leave a five-star rating on iTunes and tell all the friends. The longevity of this program very much depends on your support and I thank you. In this episode, I talk with Jessica Hargreaves, who is an artist and friend I met at grad school in Chicago some years ago. I've been watching her paintings evolve over recent years into something approaching sculpture and installation. There seems to be an overarching vision for what she is doing or something she is working up to that I was curious to hear more about. As expected, it was a lot of fun to talk with Jessica and I think you will find wisdom in what she has to say. Here's my conversation with artist Jessica Hargreeves.
Jessica HargreavesBefore I went to art school, my parents made me get an academic degree. And I got in, you know, my grades were good in French. Not that I had any connection really with it. Just had a family full of French teachers. So I got good grades and got into school to study French. And so I had a degree in French language and literature. Was completely miserable for all four years of it. Desperate to go to art school. You know, my parents said, if you finish your degree, we will support you through art school. So in that time, I met my first boyfriend's mother was an art teacher. And she helped me in the year in, you know, from after I graduated my French degree. And she helped me get in the summer in the period in between. She helped me get into a foundation course. to study art and in that foundation course we practiced with sculpture um and not just clay you know kind of wire you know they were they had forging classes and they had drawing classes and painting classes and materials class you know all all you know so you've got to kind of have a go with all kinds of material, melting wax, you know, just, there was, you know, there was a, there was a sort of undergirding of a lot of drawing. But you could draw, you know, they, you know, sometimes it would be pencil, sometimes it would be charcoal, you know, Was there a requirement of certain classes?
Trenton ReynoldsLike you had to take a certain number of sculpture classes, a certain number of painting?
Jessica HargreavesNot really. It was pretty, you know, it was pretty much like everybody did every class. You know, it was a small, you know, maybe they were like, 22 students in that year in that in the intake and we all did everything you know so so you know you'd have a project they'd give you a it was project based so they'd give you a project and within that project they'd say we want you to use this this this and this And so you could say anything you wanted to within that project. So, you know, for example, one project was, you know, make a mask. And you could do it, you know, you had to pick a person and then make a mask that represented them. And you'd be in pairs. So you had to kind of collaborate also.
Yeah.
Jessica HargreavesSo people did all kinds of things. You know, some people hung fabric from it. You know, I did melted wax on strips of paper and then kind of attached them and made this helmet of Charles Manson. I was waiting to drop that one. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So, but so, so we, so, so we messed around with a lot of things.
Trenton ReynoldsWas that a typical art program from where you were at? Is that, that sounds awesome.
Jessica HargreavesIt was, it was amazing. I think it's, It was a little bit more loosey-goosey than many of them because it was, you know, like it was part-time and it was appealing to a lot of people who'd kind of done other things before and, you know, came to it a little bit later. Although not, I mean, Sam Taylor Wood, I don't know if you've heard of her, but she was on that program. You know, there were a lot of really interesting people on that program. with me um and so and but i was bound and determined to study fashion because you know i wanted to please my parents um and do something that you know maybe made some money you know because everyone's everyone knows you don't make any money being a fine artist you know mm-hmm lived that lesson. Living that lesson. Living that lesson, yes. Living that lesson. So I decided I'm going to be a fashion designer. And all the teachers on that course were appalled because they saw in me a fine artist. And looking back, I'm like, yeah. you were right. But I also, you know, so I'm getting back to materials. So, but, you know, I was obsessed with dressing my body, you know, and clothing it and, you know, cloth and like what you could do with cloth on a body and how you could change your appearance and, you know, play around with that. And I was interested in saying things with clothes. I mean, you know, you have, you work in the fashion industry. or saying things with fabric. You know, you work in the fashion industry for 10 minutes and you realize, fuck that, mostly. Excuse my language. Am I allowed to swear?
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Jessica HargreavesYeah. Okay, I know I'm a foul mouth. What we had to do, you know, we had to do this, you know, when I finished the foundation course, we had to do, you know, our final show. And I got hold of these... shop window dummies i'm not what are they called mannequins mannequins and i made costumes for them and then i made a costume for myself within that and i painted a backdrop so i think i was you know then i you know I was a mixed media artist because I still wanted to paint. I painted, you know, I was always like painting my own face, you know, with crazy, you know, like I'd paint my face and then make crazy faces and then paint that again, you know, within this foundation course. So, so on the foundation, my imagination really was allowed to run wild and, and, I was very happy there.
Trenton ReynoldsSo with the fashion though, was that primarily a practical motivated decision? Like this is something that I can do and actually maybe make money from it? Or were you like, that was the start of your interest? Like you were interested in fashion that got you into these other?
Jessica HargreavesNo, I think it was a bit of both. I think I was young. I was incredibly vain. I hung out with like little clubbers. So I was really into sort of dressing up and going out. And I didn't really think it through. You know, I didn't, I just thought, you know, I just wanted to please my parents and wanted to do something creative.
Good.
Jessica HargreavesSo there was always like a desire to draw, a desire to make in this very, you know, kind of hands-on feeling the materials way.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, see that right there, that seems significant to me. Like there is a very strong material component of sewing, right? Like there's tactility, there's different fabrics and feels and the way that you can manipulate those materials with different tools. Right. But yet you didn't feel as connected to or compelled by or invested in those materials as you did in charcoal and on paper.
You know what I'm saying?
Jessica HargreavesYou know, yes, I totally know what you're saying. And it's less immediate. Like, I love the feel of fabrics. And I still, you know, I still love going into super high-end fashion fabrics. stores and looking at really, really beautifully made clothing that's made with like interesting fabric or, you know, different kinds of fabric that I can touch and feel and see how it's put together. But the part where you put it together, my mind wouldn't work that way because you have to do, there's a lot of pattern cutting and construction and this sort of technical aspect that I had a really, really hard time with. Right, right. I mean, I still have problems with perspective and things like that, that in my mind, anything that sort of connects with mathematics or like, so I was always forgetting to put seam allowances on the things that I was sewing and then I'd sew them and they'd be too small.
Right, right.
Jessica HargreavesYou know, so it was, you know, whereas when you make a drawing, you can look at it and you go, you can see right away, that's wrong. That looks wrong. And then you can battle with it, you know, or a painting, you know, or... And even the sculptural things that I make, you know, if it's not working, you can just peel it off or sand it down.
Trenton ReynoldsRight. There's an immediacy to the kind of creativity that you're involved in, right? Or the materials allow for this kind of flexibility that you just don't get with when you're working with a sewing machine. For the most part, yes. There's a book called Art and Fear. I don't know if you've ever read that, but fantastic book. One of the things that they focus on in the book is this idea that just because you love something doesn't mean that that's your statement to make or your, you Just because you like it doesn't mean that that's you. Does that make sense? Just because you love photographs of landscape doesn't mean that you are a landscape photographer or that that's your work to make. Absolutely. Absolutely. I feel like that's what I'm hearing you say is just because you like fine fashion and you love the fabric and you love to see how things are constructed... It doesn't mean that that's your artwork.
Jessica HargreavesAnd I'm a vain little creature and like to kind of plomp around in nice clothes. You know, I like to dress myself and, you know, play with my image. It doesn't. No, it does not mean. That's absolutely correct. And that was my... horrendous journey I had to make.
Trenton ReynoldsWell, it's hard. It's hard to figure that out though.
Jessica HargreavesI was really stubborn as well. Like I really, you know, my, my first boyfriend who, who was a very talented fashion designer, actually my second boyfriend, sorry, oops, who I met at fashion school. He, you know, he was brilliant. And he would say to me, you know, And you like draw, I think you're an illustrator. I think, you know, I don't think that designing clothes is for you. And I just get really annoyed with him and just yell at him.
Right.
Jessica HargreavesBecause my, you know, because I'd have all these ideas, but I didn't know how to, or I couldn't. I couldn't invest in honing them down to a collection that made sense.
Right.
Trenton ReynoldsI've had the experience several times as a teacher, and this is kind of part of, I think, what's prompted me to try to have these conversations, is I've seen a student come in. I worked with older adults for many years, like 10 years. Right. And they'd come in having spent five years doing watercolor classes and I'd watch them painting with watercolor. And I just know almost immediately you're not a watercolorist, right? That's just like what you're trying to, the way that you're handling this paint, the images that you're trying to make, it's just not watercolor. And then, you know, they'd see a demo using acrylic or oil or collage or something else. And all of a sudden something would click and they're off to the races. And it's like, um, you know, it opens up, it's this resonance that happened is it's the right fit, you know? Yeah. So, and, and, and I think it's, That moment is so compelling as a teacher to see somebody really find what it is, the right tool for them, the right pathway for their creativity.
Jessica HargreavesI think I was fighting my right fit. Right, right, right. When I did that foundation course. Yes. There were so many things that felt right, actually, you know, because I was allowed to use my imagination, which I actually think is kind of. the, my fund, this sounds goofy, but my fundamental tool is, is this, is my, you know, my imagination that, that I live in stories. And so when I went to grad school, one of the things I really wanted to figure out was how to tell my, you know, it was to access the imagine my imagination
and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and
Jessica Hargreavesand I felt like I had to kind of, you know, I think I have like a fairly natural hand as far as sort of drawing and using, using oil paint. That's what comes easiest to me.
Um,
Jessica HargreavesAnd so I wanted to get better at that because I hadn't been taught to paint really properly, like with all the color charts and all of that. I completely missed that by not doing an undergraduate program. There were all sorts of technical things that were missing. But because I was sort of just naturally good enough, I could start there. You know, I could start with drawing and painting and telling my stories, you know, visually figuring out how to tell my stories. And so that's why, you know, when I was in grad school. pretty much all I did was draw and paint.
Right.
Jessica HargreavesBecause I felt like I had so much catching up to do with so many other aspects of being a fine artist. Because remember there was that trend in... making bad oil paintings. I mean, it's still sort of going on.
Trenton ReynoldsI was going to say, yeah,
Jessica Hargreavesnever went and never, it never went away. And so I kind of start, you know, so I did, I, I was sort of doing that, you know, lazy oil painting. So I went through this phase of like trying to make these paintings and, you know, like painting out of my imagination only and just, you know, and Jim Lutz came into my studio and he said, you care too much about the paint and about being good at using it. And so you will never paint. be able to do this. You'll never be a lazy painter. And I was like, you are oh so right. And so I started that, you know, so, so Lutz actually helped me figure out like what colors to use, what kinds of paints to, you know, cause at that period of time I was using student grade paint, painting on shitty surfaces, just doing whatever. Yeah.
Trenton ReynoldsRight. He was a materials junkie too, right? Like he knew materials. Yeah.
Jessica HargreavesAnd so he, you know, helped me figure out like, not only, you know, like which colors to, you know, what colors to, you know, how to have like a basic palette, which I didn't know, you know, I was just like, you know, throwing shit at the wall. Spaghetti, throwing spaghetti at the wall. And so he helped me, you know, he helped me figure out like what colors I need for my basic palette, how to kind of apply them so you don't end up with just a complete muddy mess. Right. And, you know, just sort of started me thinking about my materials, you know, and not just sort of going, OK, I'm going to tell this story. Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap with the paint, you know, like, OK, so I'm going to use this material in this way to tell this story. Does that make sense?
Trenton ReynoldsYeah, yeah. No, it seems like in grad school, it was a time to simplify what you were taking on materials-wise so that you could focus more on story. And concepts. Yeah. Right, right, right. Yes. And not have to worry about taking on all of this new, you know, just dealing with the practicality of what materials do what. Like just lasering in on paint helped you focus. I think that's great, yeah.
Jessica HargreavesYes. I did need to – I wanted to. Not only did I need to, but I wanted to – figure out how to access concept with some clarity. Although, you know, that's an ongoing issue in my work.
Trenton ReynoldsBut, but anticipating though, um, what you've done since then, what I'm, it's significant to me to, that was a beginning and you were still finding the right fit of materials. Whereas, you know, other people, when they get to grad school, they've already kind of landed, um, Yes, yes, yes. In the medium that they're going to use for the rest of their art career, right? Or like fairly solid in what that is. And that's probably what I had assumed where you were at. But what I've seen since grad school is that like you've got this huge range of materials that you're interested in exploring. And it certainly was not the, you know, you had not landed on the right material yet. Or the only material.
Jessica HargreavesThe only material because I still absolutely love painting and drawing and I think that that's at the core of my practice.
Sure.
Jessica HargreavesBut I feel like, you know, I've always... I've always been drawn to installations, but not just, you know, when they're kind of like rooms that you go in and you sit and, you know, and that hot, like I'll give you an example, like the peacock room. Have you ever been to the peacock room, the whistler, that whistler room? It's in the Freer Gallery of Art, D.C., where there's the fighting peacocks and then the painting. So there's a mural on the wall. And then there's all this kind of that, you know, there's everything is in harmony with the work on the wall. You know, there's furniture that goes with the paintings that go with the ceramics. That it's like this beautiful room that has a, An amazing mood to it.
Trenton ReynoldsYeah. Yeah. So it's like this kind of blue-green. Yes. With the peacocks are kind of in white with black lines type deal.
Jessica HargreavesWell, the peacocks, they're actually gold.
Oh, they're gold.
Jessica HargreavesThey're gold on blue. I mean, and they're these two fighting peacocks, and they represented Whistler and the guy who he was making the room for, fighting over what the room was about and how the painting, it was the guy's wife. that is painted in it. You know, so it's this sort of funny narrative in there of the peacocks fighting and then all this other ornate beauty that kind of, feeds this image of the peacocks fighting and then, you know, this sort of woman looking passively on, passively and beautifully just sort of there.
Trenton ReynoldsHearing the way that you describe that, like, it feels like it gives me a different perspective on your artwork and... Because there's an element of ornateness or decoration and sophistication, but then there's always this little twist of absurd humor. Absurd is not the right word. This little bit of just silliness or the awkwardness of people and life and relationships. There's always that little element in it that... contradicts in some ways the visual or the aesthetic. I'm not sure if I'm saying that very well.
Jessica HargreavesThat's absolutely what I'm going for, you know, because there really always has to be some element of absurdity or almost always some element of absurdity or ridiculousness to, to what I'm making. And, you know, if it's not in one piece that's in a project, it's in another, you know, and some series are more ridiculous than others, but every, you know, all of them, every installation is, that I make or, you know, has an element of ridiculousness to it. Or humor or playfulness or something, you know, that kind of lightens up the mood of what I'm saying because what I'm saying usually is pretty bleak.
Trenton ReynoldsRight. Yeah. Yeah. The, the, the series that comes to mind is, um, uh, the invisible women, uh, the invisible woman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so to describe it and everybody's listening, go to, go to Jessica's website, Jessica Hargreeves at.com. I'll have a link on the website, but There's a series called The Invisible Woman where there are these paintings of very passionate, beautiful people that, you know, engaged in various scenarios. And then in all of these different scenarios, there's this woman's off to the side kind of as the observer.
Jessica HargreavesLike scrutinizing.
Trenton ReynoldsScrutinizing.
Jessica HargreavesOr just watching or trying to make sense of. It's a combination of all of those things. Like she's just.
Trenton ReynoldsThere's a, there's a sadness to that in my mind. Like the whole idea of the invisible woman, there's a, there's, there's a funniness or awkwardness about it. It kind of highlights the silly over the top drama of this scene that you've you're presenting and,
Jessica HargreavesAnd those scenes are often taken from old master paintings, you know, and I've somehow flipped them or, you know, used, you know, and I've used myself in various, you know, like there's one where she's looking at a girl trying on shoes. And the girl trying on shoes is a younger version of myself. And the invisible woman, I used my aunt for it, but she is me too. And those, you know, and those, to go back to material, those are painted. I try, you know, the way I handle paint, is very influenced by Fragonard. You know, like the way, you know, that sort of brushy, you know, and there's a lot of humor in his paintings too and the sort of loose brushiness of his work kind of is playful too you know so so it's like i try and keep a sort of in that series a playfulness in the brushwork that then kind of feeds into the narrative so you're you're mostly
Trenton Reynoldsoil oil on canvas in grad school working with these uh narratives and um stories, concepts, moving, where did you go from there materials-wise after grad school?
Jessica HargreavesOkay, so after grad school, I started making, you know, I wanted to make bigger paintings. So then I, you know, I had, I got a studio and I, you know, I, I stayed with oil, mostly oil on canvas or oil on panel for this, for those series. And I'd make, you know, I'd sometimes sort of staple huge amounts of canvas. Not much of those pieces have made it to my website because they weren't that
great. Yeah.
Jessica HargreavesBut I did, you know, I wanted to sort of to just like really make, you know, big brush marks and sort of play, you know, because I wanted to get looser. I wanted to be able, you know, to paint looser and looser. And, you know, to sort of really work on my paint handling in relation to the subject matter.
Yeah.
Jessica HargreavesSo that was The Invisible Woman. And then after that, I think I started painting. I mean, I think there were a few small series, but the next big series after that was The Home, where I was sort of painting these domestic scenes on room dividers. you know, and I guess that was a move also towards the, you know, I guess the, you know what, I'm sorry to be such a jumble, but I guess the paintings on the big pieces of canvas were part of the trying to move towards installations, like big painted installations, you know, like that, the Whistler room is always in my mind. And, you know, and there are other, you know, and then there are those rooms in the Metropolitan, you know, I mean, and there are rooms like all over Europe also that, you know, this sort of idea of decoration. But then in the decoration, something's always happening.
Trenton ReynoldsRight. Is this is this something that you were conscious of at the time or is this in retrospect?
Jessica HargreavesYou realize I was conscious of it. I was conscious of it, but I couldn't manage it. You know, so it was this was like experiments that didn't quite work. A lot of the time, you know, so I'd paint these big, you know, I'd make small pieces and then I'd have these big wall paintings. And sometimes I put the small paintings on top of the big paintings. But I think for people coming to my studio, it was visual overload.
Trenton ReynoldsSo these dividers, the screens, that wasn't just a practical decision to make a larger painting. It was thinking of them potentially as installed. As furniture. Yes.
Jessica HargreavesAnd sort of having them. So I'd paint a scene and I was looking at Japanese screens and... you know, how you could have these things in your house that served a function, you know, but then also had something going on that was sort of interesting to look at, you know, so a little story or... So I was sort of painting these screens and they were, you know, they were about domestic life and then, you know... often the screens would have what was going on, you know, like maybe a TV screen within the screen would show, you know, like flooding from Sandy or riots in London on the television, you know, like, so there's, you know, there's one painting in particular that I'm thinking of called "Night Riot" where there's a woman, me, lying in bed, looking at a man who's looking at his shaving in the mirror or doing something and he's naked and she's looking is it in his direction or is it the television where there's a scene of a riot
Trenton Reynoldsi just pulled it up he's he's looking she's looking at the television scene with right
Jessica Hargreavesyeah yes and and um And then she's sitting, she's in bed and the bed is like this very loosely painted pattern. And then there's a pattern on the wall, there's a pattern around the edge of the screen. You know, it's like patterns everywhere all around her. But the man is like in this little area where there is no pattern. Like he's a, you know, he's just there. And there's sort of light coming from the bathroom and the television. There's no pattern in the television. So she's sort of looking at these two, almost their images. They're sort of within her world, but they're also images.
Right.
Jessica HargreavesAnd so, you know, so there's all sorts of things going on in this very decorated object that
Trenton ReynoldsYou know what I'm noticing looking at it right here on the screen is that the color palette of the TV screen, the fire, you know, in the buildings is similar to the color palette of his skin. Like the connection between those two.
Jessica HargreavesYou know, and it's sort of the fire of disaster and the fire of desire, you know.
Yeah, yeah.
Jessica HargreavesI moved from, you know, so from that series where everything was still painted, although it started to be on objects, I then started wanting to make objects or have... my paintings be part object, part painting. And I was looking at a lot of ceramics from the, I guess, 16th, 17th century. You know, I can't... There's palissy. Is that what they're called?
Ceramics. I always say it wrong.
Jessica HargreavesMy P-A-L-I-S-S-Y. That's it. Yes. So you'll see... these various, I don't, yes. Yes, I guess it was Bernard Palissy. That's a Huguenot Potter hydraulics. That's it. Yep. I was just blown away by that shit, you know, and always have been. I mean, I guess I've always been. obsessed with that kind of ceramic wear. But when I, you know, I did have a brief flotation with ceramics and I'm such an oaf. Like I drop things, I break things. I do it wrong. There's bubbles in the ceramics. It blows. It sucks. It sucks. You know, like I fire it, it explodes. It's a disaster. Me and ceramics is a bit of a disaster. It's less of a disaster when someone makes the bowl for me and then I build things on it.
Right. I've done that.
Jessica HargreavesBut I wanted, you know, I wanted to put... ceramics around my paintings, but that, you know, it shrank. That was, you know, so I experimented with that, broke a lot of clay. I was like, this isn't working. So then I found out, I found, you know, I kind of went online and was like, resin, you know, like sculptable resin. And I found this stuff called Magic Sculpt. which I got hold of. And that was the first stuff that I began to, you know, build around my frames and I could sculpt it like clay, but it dried harder than clay. It didn't shrink. I could paint on top of it, um,
Trenton ReynoldsSo for those that are listening, it's basically like clay and there are two parts. There's a resin and then there's a hardener and you squish them together and then you've got a period of time before it sets. It dries solid. It's like super solid and it sticks to anything.
Jessica HargreavesYes, it sticks to many different surfaces and it dries hard almost like a hard plastic. So when you're a bit clumsy, you can drop it and only the really thin, fragile parts break. You know, the rest like kind of doesn't break.
Right.
Jessica HargreavesYou know, but you have to be careful to mix the parts equally because if you don't, then it doesn't dry and you end up with like sticky parts on your painting, which has happened to me. And I sold one once and the person who I sold it to was like, there's this sticky part I found and I had to take it back, scoop it out and re-sculpt it and paint it all over again and do it. So that happened. So word to the wise, be careful when you mix your... But magic sculpt also, after a while started, my eyes started to swell shut when I used it. So then I found epoxy sculpt, which...
Trenton ReynoldsSo magic sculpt is an epoxy?
Jessica HargreavesYes, magic sculpt is an epoxy, but then I moved to epoxy sculpt, which is very similar to magic sculpt, but seems to be less toxic.
Trenton ReynoldsGot it. Okay. Apoxy, that's A-P-O-X-I-E.
Jessica HargreavesA-P-O-X-I-E, yes. Yes. Got it. And it's still, I can paint, you know, oil paint. So I usually paint an acrylic coating on top of it and then put oil on top of that when I'm painting it. Just, you know, I don't know, you know, with these materials, I don't know if the oil paint will eventually eat the epoxy sculpt, but... you know i'll do what i can to protect it right so far that hasn't happened i think you're pretty
Trenton Reynoldssafe with with epoxy resins that they yeah i think if the epoxy resins tend to yellow over time but if you're painting on top of it i don't think you're going to see any of that yes yes
Jessica Hargreavesi've noticed that with what you know so there have been a few kind of mistakes that I've left and I've not bothered to paint. And I've seen them go yellow, but yeah, the ones that I've painted seem to hold up pretty well.
Trenton ReynoldsSo you start adding these, sculpting directly onto your frames on these objects that you're painting?
Jessica HargreavesYeah, so what I do is I plan an image, I do a pencil image on the, you know, so I started working on small wood panels. And then I'd pencil the image that was going to go in the middle of the frame and then sculpt, you know, the, you know, what I wanted the frame to have going on in it around the image. And, you know, so I started with these scenes of... Then I started, you know, and then I kind of played with panels where I would have the, you know, the painted image and the sculpted image kind of interact. So you know, it might be a child hugging a dog. And the images of both would have sculpted elements. And then animals around them.
Trenton ReynoldsSo some of these animals, are they found objects sometimes or are they all sculpted?
Jessica HargreavesThey're all sculpted.
Trenton ReynoldsIt seems like, so you're working with epoxy, these epoxy clays or putties on found objects. It looks like you got mirrors and frames and then you're combining that with actual objects like these screens and it looks like you've got like a room divider. There's wallpaper also. I've made
Jessica Hargreaveswallpaper. I've made pillows. Oh, did you make that
Trenton Reynoldswallpaper? Yeah, I made that wallpaper. Oh my gosh, it's beautiful. I love that. How did you do that?
Jessica HargreavesYeah, so that's drawer. You know, I drew... I drew the pattern, Faisal helped me figure out how, you know, so this is where the technical part comes in. Putting it into repeat was a nightmare. Putting things into, putting patterns into repeat is not my strong suit.
Um,
Jessica HargreavesSo it involves Photoshop. It involves layers. I'm just like, oh, my brain's going to explode. Someone help me. So I have to have help with putting things into repeat. I've made jewelry as well. I don't know if you've seen the jewelry too. I have a whole jewelry website. jhoggreensindustry.com.
Trenton ReynoldsOh, I've got to check that.
Jessica HargreavesYeah. The spew of it all. Yeah, so you can have a quick look at that. Because that also, the jewelry also speaks to elements in the installations and in the, you know, so I almost had a jewelry business because I thought, okay. I, you know, I was like, oh, I want a cat ring and I can't afford the $20,000 Cartier diamond encrusted panther ring. So I was like, I want to make a cat ring. So then I learned how to wax carve, you know, to do the lost wax technique.
Right.
Jessica HargreavesAnd then I had friends like the things I made because I got kind of into the class. I got sort of obsessed.
Trenton ReynoldsWith wax carving, who was doing the, did you have a foundry you worked with? Oh, this was a class.
Jessica HargreavesSo I went to the jewelry district and get, you know, you get molds made, silicone molds made, and then you get things cast.
Right.
Jessica HargreavesAnd then, you know, I can't set a stone to save my life. So I had to figure out stone setters. And, you know, there's a whole, when you make jewelry, there's a whole sort of industry that you need to involve if you're not trained as a jeweler. And even if you are, you know, I mean, I know plenty of jewelers who use, you know, if you want to make, you know, you can't have a foundry on your own premises or whatever, you know, there's a lot of outsourcing, which is why I ended up, you know, kind of scaling that back. And now I'm just going to make jewelry pieces that go with. So if I make an installation or an idea for an installation, there's always going to be a jewelry piece or two or three that go with that installation, go with the theme. So, you know, my most recent series is Girls at the End of the World. And that's, you know, that's what the wallpaper is part of.
Right.
Jessica HargreavesAnd, you know, so I've got furniture, I've got mirrors with girls, you know, like, and furniture that have the girls at the end, you know, girls with a, holding up a globe and... various, you know, and then kind of endangered species mirrors that go on top of the wallpaper and alongside the paintings. And I'm in the process of making a pendant that has a diver's helmet with a hummingbird inside it. You know, and is on a lariat chain. So, but that, you know, is in its beginning phases, that pendant. So, you know, but there's...
Trenton ReynoldsIt seems like you're well on your way to getting to the peacock room. Like, you've got...
Jessica HargreavesIt's like, it's my goal. It's my goal. I, you know, and I'm, you know, and I'm not averse to having work of other artists in whatever my room is, you know, it's not like I want to do it all, but I just... I like trying to do it all. You know, I like, you know, I mean, as I'm talking to you, I'm sitting in a room that is kind of an installation. But, you know, I have wallpaper. I can send you images of the room. I don't think it's not on my website yet. But I have the wallpapers on the walls. There's one of the girls at the end of the world paintings with a couple of mirrors. And then up on the mantelpiece, I have a portrait of Faisal and I and the dog that then has like a sculpted border of leaves and it's kind of an autumn painting. you know, so it's like the trees are full colors and there are falling leaves on the edge of the painting. So it's, you know, because we're in the fall of our lives, Basil and I, so, and that's like over the fireplace.
Trenton ReynoldsHave you ever done an installation incorporating all those elements in like a gallery or like a show? Or is this?
Jessica HargreavesYes, I did. I did one. So if you look at as it ever was on the website, that was an installation. So I had two different kinds of wallpapers. The person that shot. The photographs for that didn't do such a great job. So you can't see. I hand painted huge sections of the wall. There's like a wallpaper installation in there. There's wallpaper featuring Faisal in bed. There's shoes. There's, you know, cushions. So, yes, I have. And I've done parts of installations in shows, in recent shows, but I am working towards doing a Girls at the End of the World installation series. with another artist that we're going to preview in fall. In the gallery space that I've opened, you know, outside our house, there's an old carriage house in front of the house, our farmhouse that is a gallery space at the moment that's going to be an installation space. So we'll be having installations by two other artists and then in the fall we're going to have this installation that will be with my friend Kathleen Vance, who's also co-running, she and her husband, Daniel Aycock, who run Front Room Gallery. are also running it's called the the mother-in-law's is us is our gallery because it used to be it used to be the mother-in-law of the family that lived in this house actually lived in that carriage house for some time and it had no heating and no hot water and it was a bit of a brutal existence so my goodness i know so there's so much stuff going on with me trent i know it's like a little
Trenton Reynoldsbit hard to kind of wade through it no it's as is appropriate i don't know it feels like that's that's that's jessica that's it is jessica yes um So a couple things that I just wanted to say. One is I just have been so impressed by your sculpting ability. They're beautiful little sculptures. And the way that you're incorporating the paint with the sculpture, it feels united. It doesn't feel like... I mean, it's wonky in the right way, right? It's like it feels a piece. It all works really well together.
Jessica HargreavesWell, thank you for saying that because that is what I'm shooting for. I mean, even my painting, like everything I do, I feel like it has to be wonky in the right way. You know, like if I paint a rug, it sort of falls off the painting, right?
Right.
Jessica HargreavesYou know, but it's, you know, because I know when I've done something and it's wonky in the wrong way. Sometimes, sometimes I don't, you know, but it is, all my work is a battle to have it be wonky in the right way.
Right.
Trenton ReynoldsAnd I know you're not taking it this way, but I don't mean it as a criticism at all. No, I take that as a compliment
Jessica Hargreavesbecause that's what I want. I want wonky in the right way.
Trenton ReynoldsWhen it's like you look at a, you look at a, at some artwork and it feels like there's truth there. Like the person is like, you're there. The artist is there. They're not, they're not trying to present something that's more polished than they really are or something that, you know, there's, there's no facade. And, and I, when I look at your work, I really feel that I don't feel like I'm seeing a facade. I feel like I'm really getting a glimpse into, um, you and and there's like an honesty or an authenticity there that i think is hard for anybody any artist to arrive at and i feel like you're hitting a stride in a in a really profound
Jessica Hargreavesway so and that's that is a huge compliment and it ties back to the fashion which was all a facade You know, when I wanted to be a fashion designer, it was all a front. I was putting up a front, you know, for what I wanted to be rather than what I am.
Right.
Jessica HargreavesAnd, yes. Well, that's it. I tied that up with a bow, didn't I?
Trenton ReynoldsYou did. Well done. Well done. Great story. Thank you. The Peacock Room. That's the answer. The Vision. Thank you, Jessica, for talking with me. I'm excited for all the projects you have going and hope to be able to visit you and your gallery space sometime soon. You can find images of Jessica's work at JessicaHargreaves.com. That's Hargreaves, H-A-R-G-R-E-A-V-E-S. And you can follow her on Instagram at jhargreaves. And thank you all for listening to Davilon. I'm glad you're there. And we'll have another conversation for you soon. So come back. Also rate this podcast on iTunes. Make a donation on the website and tell friends and family. And you can check out the Peacock Room and some of the other things that we talked about in this episode in the show notes for this episode, which are at dabalon.com. That's D-A-B-B-L-E-O-N.com forward slash podcast.