For this week’s Sunday Visit, we catch up with California-based mixed media artist Jody Alexander.
Jody is a mixed media artist who lives and works in Santa Cruz and Penn Valley, California. She combines textiles, paper, found items and imagery to create books, objects, wall pieces, garments, and installations. Her current work is inspired by the art of repair, reuse, imagery and stories encountered in her travels and everyday.
We’re so excited that Jody will also be our LAST Botanical Colors class of this year BUT the first in our new studio space. Yes, we’ll be teaching in real life alongside Jody on November 4th and 5th in Seattle so save the date for a Stitch, Patch, Dye: Bag Making Workshop With Jody Alexander & Kathy Hattori.
Learn more about the class and sign up to be notified when it opens here.
Now for our visit with Jody…
When was your first recollection that you’d made “art?”
One memory stands out and this is from 2nd grade. My homeroom teacher was an artist and she incorporated art and creative writing into many of our lessons. She was a great teacher and I was lucky to have her for 3 years since the school moved her up grades along with me! We had one project where she taught us how to write haiku and then she showed us Japanese artwork (which, looking back, must have been woodblock prints) and had us paint in that style with watercolors and then write a haiku related to it. I thought my painting was horrible and was embarrassed by it but the teacher singled it out to show the class as an example of the project well done. She also entered it into the student art show and it won a ribbon. So, I guess that is the first time I was aware of making art but it was also the first introduction to my brutal inner critic!
Your work is inspired by the art of repair, reuse and stories encountered in your everyday. Tell us about your most recent inspiration.
My last few series’ have been inspired by my experiences, and they utilize previously used materials, and incorporate stitching and mending techniques as functional and decorative elements. From 2020-2022, I worked on the what it was series that drew on imagery that I saw in Japan during four trips taken between 2015-2020. This was during the first two years of the pandemic so I was looking at recent past experiences for inspiration. I created stencils, and also used many of my photographs to make cyanotype printed fabrics. The fabric I used was old European linen – often hand spun and hand woven – and printed on it, created cyanotypes, and often used locally sourced natural materials (acorns, oak galls and pomegranates) to dye the fabric and tone the cyanotypes. I then stitched these fabrics together to create wall pieces, objects, and garments. I may continue with this series but I am currently taking a break from it and working on a series related to my open water swimming in the ocean and lakes.
In this series, entitled Aqua Lab, I’m gathering data from my swims: date, air and water temperature, latitude and longitude, distance swam, swim routes, dirt, and taking underwater photos to capture the color of the water. I’m transferring the water photos on old European linen, scattering the other data here and there, and stitching it all together to create wall pieces and objects – a few are wearable! It will all come together in an installation in 2024.
When you teach a class, what’s the first thing you tell your students about process?
I don’t always come out and say this but whatever I’m teaching, whether it is bookbinding, stitching, garment or object making, I like to teach students how to do something properly, maybe even follow the rules, learn to do it right, and then break whatever rules you want to do your own thing. Use materials that speak to you, use what you have on hand, source from the recycling bin and thrift shops, and play!
Do you have a favorite color inspiration right now and how are you using it as part of your work?
I love blues and browns together. In my “what it was” series I utilized indigo blue combined with browns, sometimes from Japanese indigo cotton fabric combined with the naturally dyed linen. But, also cyanotypes can be toned with tannins to achieve gorgeous indigo blue colors and deep browns. In my Aqua Lab series I’m seeing every hue of blue and green in the photos that I’m taking under water. In a small sub series I am combining these blues and greens with the red dirt I’m collecting from the shore of the Sierra Nevada Foothill lakes. The juxtaposition of the water color and the dirt is stunning to me – it’s the crocodile view of what I see on my swims!
Go here to learn more and to get notified when Jody and Kathy’s class opens September 7th!
Follow Jody on Instagram here and here for her Aqua Lab project.
Visit her website here.