Pandemic Logistics

Measureable Phantasmagoria

Itemized Pandemonium

Analytical Anarchy

Quizzical Framework

Artist Statement
Stemming from my own experience as an African American woman of mixed heritage, my work has been an exploration of the divisions and relationships between contemporary ethnic groups. Signs, representations, and abstractions reveal themselves in implied geography, cartoonish shapes, exoskeletal forms, spores, cancer cells, flora, fauna, and so on. Size, shape, and color function to shift and ultimately disrupt the viewer’s perceived ability to conclude that a form is fixed and nameable as perhaps an insect larvae, a piece of candy, an environmental contamination, or some other recognizable object. The impulse to identify and label the forms, and to force a system into the visual disorder in order to create a tidy, decisive, pictorial sense, becomes impossible as the viewer gives in to the realization that his or her decision making is a shifting, contingent interpretation of the visual information presented. Ultimately, these paintings reveal the extent to which our labels and fictions create an artificial simplicity, which guards a more complex and meaningful truth.

Website
http://lisacorinnedavis.com/

Every year is an evolutionary step in the Blogfest. Full disclosure, I volunteered to help plan the Blogs of a Feather portion of the evening. While there are things that could have gone better, overall, I was happy with the results. Apparently the sponsorship of Absolut Vodka was upsetting to some. While I realize that people will have differing opinions it’s disappointing to see personal, vicious, and spectacularly uninformed attacks on people’s integrity. It’s easy to complain, it’s much more difficult to put in the hard work to stage an event for five consecutive years with a volunteer staff and no significant financial backing.

All that said, I believe the Blogfest is a worthwhile and unique event. It’s a chance for people to meet, compare notes, and voice their opinions in a forum that is all too rare in our society. I look forward to next year’s event and the next step in the continuing evolution of the Brooklyn Blogfest.

The Pillars of Creation, Quilt, 81″ x 73″

R136 in 30 Doradus, Quilt, 77″ x 78″

M64, Child’s Quilt, 45″ x 60″

Artist Statement
they say in space, “no one can hear you scream.” well, they can’t hear the low drone of the internal power generators kick on again when you’re half way to nowhere. i can. i work for a shipping company called “intergalactic transport.” i travel back and forth from rock to rock carrying those two all important gems- salt and vinegar. there’s a lot of time to kill up here so i downloaded a grandma program and she’s been teaching me how to quilt. there’s no “log cabins” or “poinsettias” around so i just stare out the window until something catches my eye. it’s nice every once in a while to shoot the shit with a fellow traveler, or get caught up in the new dawn celebrations in the outer rim, but mostly it’s just me; with a lot of time on my hands.

Website
http://jimmymcbride.com

Upcoming Exhibit
Take Me To Your Leader, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Oslo, Norway, 11/10

Where: CastleBraid 114 Troutman Street (between Central and Evergreen) Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY J/M/Z to Myrtle-Bwy or L to Morgan Ave.

$10 min. suggested donation at the door

RSVP: http://www.castlebraid.com/haiti

50,000 feared dead 3,000,000 injured or homeless and the ground’s still moving. COME OUT FOR THE CAUSE! Dancing, Drinks, Donations ALL PROCEEDS from the event go to the EMERGENCY RELIEF EFFORTS OF THE RED CROSS

***All ages! (21+ to drink) ENTRY INCLUDES: ***Happiness that you’re HELPING! ***Brooklyn Brewery OPEN BAR! ***Free RAFFLE TICKET! (***more can be purchased for more chances to win while donating to the RED CROSS for HAITI) ***

Performances by: Jaleel Bunton of TV on the Radio Yellowbirds (myspace/yellowbirds) Aman Ellis (soundcloud.com/amanellis) VulpesVulpes (www.sonicbids.com/vulpesvulpes) Green Street Records (greenstreetrecords.blogspot.com) Photon Dynamo & the Shiny Pieces (myspace.com/photondynamo) Ellis Ashbrook (Ellisashbrook.com) My Cousin the Emperor (mycousintheemperor.com) and many more… stay posted! ***Short Film Premieres: Jason and Helena Madera, “The Little Birth that Could” Andrew Raab and Co., “The George Series” ***

2 TIER RAFFLE…. LEVEL 1: $1 CASH tickets will be sold to win Level 1 prizes LEVEL 2: $4.99 “TEXT TO ENTER” donations for Level 2 prizes YOU CHOOSE what you try to win! ALL WINNERS ANNOUNCED & WILL RECEIVE PRIZES @ the event!!! UP FOR GRABS: -8 hours of free engineered recording studio time from Castle Braid (www.castlebraid.com) -Book Package from Mark Batty Publisher (www.markbattypublisher.com) -A cut and color at L’atelier de Laurie (www.latelierdelaurie.com) -Multitude gear & skate deck (www.multitudenyc.com) -Pleasure Chest gift card (www.thepleasurechest.com) -Work generously donated by Artists and MORE! (check back for updates!)***Flipbooth – Get a personalized photo flip book made by Michael Sherriff

$10 min. suggested donation at the door Even if you can’t make it, you can help! Text HAITI to 90999 to make a donation to the Red Cross!

http://www.castlebraid.com/haiti

I’ve gotten married, had my work featured in several exhibits, got a new art studio, revamped my website, started developing a new group of paintings (see one of my latest pieces above), and posted the work of 50 artists at Art in Brooklyn. Thanks for your support and please stay tuned for more exciting events in 2010!

Health and happiness to you and your loved ones in the New Year

Centerpiece

Multiple Leaf Print

Leaf Relief

Pile of Maples

Ginkgo Leaf Circle

Artist Statement
In 2007, while walking home from my studio on a rainy Fall day and looking down at sidewalks covered with leaves, it occurred to me that the damp, resilient surface of a recently fallen leaf might be able to hold the image of a small, circular copper plate I had recently finished etching. Soon afterwards, I began to experiment with printing on fallen leaves collected from the streets and parks around Brooklyn. As a result, I created an initial series of single and multiple leaf print arrangements using circular copper plate etchings and Plexiglas plates in various combinations to print etchings, monotypes and monoprints directly on the leaves. Several of the arrangements contained leaves with no prints on them at all and some I attached to small branches and suspended with fishing wire to create three-dimensional leaf mobiles.

In 2008, I continued collecting leaves, and began to print monotypes on paper, monotypes directly on leaves, and soft ground etchings of leaves on leaves, while continuing to create new leaf arrangements and mobiles. By the Spring of 2009, I started collecting hundreds of Samara seeds produced by budding Maple Trees and used them to create new monotypes.

I am interested in how the use of the leaves and Samara seeds to make prints on paper removes the plants from their usual context and imbues them with a permanence that does not exist in the natural world. I use multiple plates and colors, along with carefully executed arrangements, endeavoring to make intricate, multi-layered images and patterns that transcend the singular identity of the individual leaf or seed. Yet, somehow I am preserving the memory of each plant’s passage through the world, even while interrupting nature’s intent.

I am also interested in the process of how the leaves are transformed into art objects. I use the botanist’s method of drying and flattening the leaves to preserve them, but they are not chemically treated. Interestingly, a similar technique is used by printmakers to dry and flatten dampened paper after printing. Dried plants can last for hundreds of years, but they have a limited life span. Eventually, the leaves I’ve used will decompose, but the decomposition is designed to be an ongoing and evolving feature of the artwork and functions as a metaphor for life as well as for art.

By using a leaf that has fallen from a tree in November or a seed that has fallen from a Maple Tree in May, I endeavor to capture a moment in the growth and life cycle of a tree and to convey its transient beauty. It is perhaps this ongoing transformation through the inexorable passage of time, this mirroring of life, that has the greatest effect on me.

Biography
Jessica Baker lives and works in Brooklyn, where she collects her materials from the streets and parks of Brooklyn, and creates all of her own prints on a table-top etching press in her studio near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Her artwork has been presented in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally.

Jessica will create her first installation, Seasonal Fall, opening December 4, 2009 in the window of the Soapbox Gallery in Brookyn. From June – August of 2009, Jessica’s work was featured in the exhibit The Nature of Being curated by the Flanders Art Gallery in Raleigh, NC for the Greenhill Center for the Arts in Greensboro, NC. From January – March of 2009, Jessica’s prints and leaf prints were featured in the exhibition Ancient Echoes in Contemporary Printmaking at the Hofstra University Museum in Long Island, NY. In 2008, Jessica’s mixed media leaf work and circular prints were featured in two solo exhibitions, Leaf Circle Line at the Lifebridge Foundation in Rosendale, NY and Leaf & Circle, at the Prospect Park Audubon Center at the Boathouse in Brooklyn, NY. In 2007 and 2008, her work was exhibited at the Galería Nacional and the Dar(t)do Gallery in San José, Costa Rica, the Flanders Art Gallery in Raleigh, NC, the College of Notre Dame of Maryland’s Gormley Gallery in Baltimore, MD, the George Washington Carver Gallery at the Magnolia Tree Earth Center in Brooklyn, NY, the Monroe Center for the Arts in Hoboken, NJ, the JMS Gallery in Philadelphia, PA and the Arlington Art Gallery in Poughkeepsie, NY. In 2006, Jessica’s work was featured in a traveling exhibition, Four Points of View: Figuration in Printmaking, presented at the Galería Naciona in San José, Costa Rica and the Dutchess Community College’s Washington Art Gallery in Poughkeepsie, NY.

In 2007, Jessica was awarded membership in the National Association of Women Artists (NAWA). In the past five years, Jessica has been awarded three artistic residencies at Weir Farm in CT, Skagway National Historic Site in Alaska, and The David and Julia White Artists’ Colony in Costa Rica. In May 2005, she was awarded an etching fellowship at the Women’s Studio Workshop in Rosendale, NY.  Her work has been collected privately and is also in a number of public collections.

Website

http://www.jessicabaker.net

Upcoming Exhibit
Seasonal Fall, will be presented by the Soapbox Gallery at 636 Dean St. between Carlton & Vanderbilt Avenues in Brooklyn.  It can be viewed daily from 12 – 10 p.m., December 4 – 17.  During the opening reception on Dec. 6 from 4 – 7 p.m., attendees are invited into the gallery for refreshments and an exhibit of additional artwork by Baker, as well as the related sculptural work of Soapbox Gallery founder, Jim Greenfield.