July 18, 2024

This is a personal post.

It’s been over 3yrs since my last post on this website and a lot has happened. I met the love of my life, bought a house, and have subsequently been working diligently on making this place nice (projects in a home are never ending and are also all consuming and very very expensive), and my partner and I are getting married.

It feels like the natural progression of life has taken over and art has been sitting idly by waiting for me to decide to sit down and create again. And it’s not like the passion isn’t there, it’s moreover that I feel riddled with guilt like there are more pressing matters at hand to occupy my time. And when I do have free time, I use that to sit with my anxiety, endlessly scroll on my phone, while half-watching/half-listening to something I’ve watched before on tv.

When I have had a moment to sit and self reflect, I have written poems. Maybe because it’s easy to write on a paper then it is to take out art supplies and make space to paint. When I bought this house, the selling point for me was this enclosed patio room that was destined to be my art studio. Instead, ultimately, it was destined to be extra storage. Also because the windows and walls are not proper windows and walls, (some kind of fabrication material, I’m not sure) it is not properly ventilated. When it’s hot outside it absorbs heat and feels like it’s 20+ degrees, not really a space to sit comfortably and work. And so it became storage, every time I’ve cleaned it out to once again try and make it a proper space, another box moves in. To be fair, yes I am the one that put the boxes in there, but this is what happens right?

As a young artist I never thought that I too would become another adult who puts other things ahead of making art, but maybe it’s also because I am enjoying my life right now and in the past making art was a way to express myself when I didn’t have any outlet. But I have an amazing partner who loves me and accepts me, listens to my anxieties without judgment, and the few relationships I do have I try to take what I’ve learned from therapy and nurture them. Maybe it’s that, or maybe I just want things clean and settled before I sit down and let myself create new work. I don’t know.

And on that note, I am working but secondarily. I am still taking photographs, but I move on too quickly and it’s not with any sort of intention other than capturing a moment. Maybe they blend together. I had a series of sunsets over supermarkets, something about the beauty in the mundane, but even then I feel it’s more about trying to notice beauty wherever you may be in life.

I am keeping this website. I will try to work and post on here. I have stacks of artwork I’ve never scanned in and misc. photographs I can upload.

Currently the wedding planning has been my latest obsession, and I plan on doing so much diy for it. I am creating and designing our invitations and website. Also learning how to do floral arrangements, because what I want is expensive and it feels like another creative outlet for me to focus my energy into.

I feel very lucky to have made it through to this other side of life. I’m grateful to be here, to start this other chapter.

Music

February 28, 2021

JessTheVagabond - Soundcloud

It is February 28, 2021.

Nearly a year into quarantine, so much has happened and also not much has happened. I’m sure most would agree with me on that.

2020 was a tough time, and I really struggled trying to find a way to keep making art when I didn’t want to, or rather, just didn’t feel like doing much of anything. It’s hard to see a point of doing something when you’re isolated from others. There was a point when I started to think about all the things I’ve put off in my life, for one reason or another. One life goal of mine was to play the piano. I’ve always loved the piano but never learned.

I started playing/learning piano in August, and in September started recording and writing songs.

At first, the songs I recorded were improvised play-through; it was an emotional time and I connected with the piano. I wanted to create music that could illustrate my emotions; heavy dark notes, melancholic, intertwined with hopeful light notes. I wasn’t sure where any of this was going. I didn’t have a set plan for what I was doing, I just wanted to learn and play, and record and share. I uploaded my music on my soundcloud immediately after writing and recording it. I didn’t want to sit and stew in the music. Each song is representative of my emotions at that specific moment of creating them. And once written and recorded, I feel them released from me.

They aren’t perfect.
They aren’t masterpieces.
But I felt freedom in trying and creating in a format that eluded me all my life.

As an artist I don’t feel beholden to one medium. My concentration has been in photography, but I want to try new ways to express myself, through drawing or paintings and now with music.

I have not shared it on my website, and few know that this has been my passion these past few months.

The world has been upended and chaotic, I didn’t feel like creating images, trying to illustrate my emotions with words and drawings. I’m enjoying this other avenue of creation, I will continue to work at it and learn as I go.

Drawings Series

October 28, 2019

On September 1, 2019 I started this series of drawings as a way to process an overflow of emotions during a tumultuous time in my life. As I progress in the series, the drawings have evolved and begun to illustrate issues of isolation, depression, existential crisis, acute awareness, and at times addressing these topics with a playfulness and curious nature. The drawings also mirror my own personal evolution in self discovery, while also reflecting on past trauma and pain.