Jessica Calderwood
Artist Statement
Trained as an enamellist first and foremost, I am interested in using traditional craft media, both for their creative properties, as well as their historical references to ‘marginal art forms’, including enamel, fiber, and glass beads. These materials are important to my work, both for their visual sensuality and their references to the labor of craft.
My current work uses forms, such as drapery and stylized botanicals, to block out, cover, and hide parts of the human form. It becomes a negation, a censoring, or denial of what lies beneath. These anthropomorphic beings appear at once, powerful and powerless, beautiful and absurd, inflated, and amputated. Working in a miniature scale can allow the viewer to access the work with empathy, but also with dominance.
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While working on this series, I began a parallel grouping of works revolving around interpretations of textile patterns by meticulously arranging and firing glass seed beads on an enameled surface. The melting of the beads permanently fuses the pattern but also encourages distortions. The creation of repetitive patterns is a meditative process, born out of the need to create order from chaos.
