Project

EMERGENCY BLANKET WEAVINGS

I have been experimenting with weavings made of mylar foil emergency thermal blankets. This lightweight material is used for first aid body warmth maintenance, emergency shelter, protection from weather, or reflective distress signals. Using both floor looms and table top looms, I weave a weft of strips cut from the mylar blankets and a warp of mason twine which is used for marking invisible spaces in construction and to draw straight lines for landscaping and masonry.  

I’m intrigued by these two different senses of time: moments of crisis versus hours of craft/labor. Weaving and craft-time suggests a kind of optimism and belief in the future: the idea that someone will be here 100 years from now using a blanket someone wove in a future that becomes increasingly hard to imagine.


Ceramics + Event

COMMUNITY DINNERS AT THE BERKELEY ART CENTER

I created a dinnerware and design experience with food and wine collaborators.


Project

EMERGENCE/EMERGENCY

This installation is a one-day pop up on Saturday, September 26 at Columbia Walk behind 151 Fairlawn Drive in Berkeley.  This pop up is a satellite exhibit, in connection with Intersections, a public project on the Berkeley Paths during the month of September, 2020, organized and curated by Hadley Dynak @peak_86

In this temporary site-specific installation called “Emergence/Emergency,” I am thinking of the ways lines of public/private shift in times of crisis.  These gold/silver emergency blankets remind me of Japanese screens but in this installation, they blow in the breeze they lift and reveal private spaces.

The Berkeley paths were largely created as emergency egress, paths between the houses to allow people to escape their homes on foot. The paths are easements through private property.  I thought of the word “easement” too and the dual meanings of ease/comfort and the right to cross or otherwise use someone else’s land for a specified purpose.  The emergency blankets provide ease, comfort and warmth in times of crisis while in this installation also creating a screen between the public path and a private home.

Though it's tricky to talk about the upsides of emergencies and crisis, there is beauty is shedding the illusion of self-sufficiency and realizing the ways in which we are connected to each other.


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Past exhibits

MATERIAL MATTERS
Seager/Gray Gallery, Mill Valley
MARCH 3 - MARCH 31, 2020 
Reception for the artists:
Saturday, March 7 from 5:30-7:30pm

Nature Studies
A collaborative clothing collection and multimedia group show
Erica Tanov Marin, Berkeley and LA
Winter 2020

Solo Exhibit of Ceramics and Paintings
Farmhouse Urban/Mill Valley Lumber Yard
Fall 2019

Kips Bay Decorator Show House
New York, New York
Collaboration with Topher Delaney (Delaney + Chin) Landscape Architect
Spring 2019

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Gesture | Selected Works
North Berkeley Investment Partners
Winter 2019

Art in April / Solo Painting Exhibit
St. Supery Winery
Spring 2017

Past projects

Jessica’s ceramic work has been featured at the SF Museum of Modern Art Store and The Gardener in Berkeley.