Artist Q&A with Jo Stealey

HR You grew up on a farm with the natural world as your playground, and you’ve also spoken about formative childhood experiences visiting the art museum in St. Louis. The best of both worlds, it seems. How did those early experiences shape the way you see the world, and where do you recognize their influence in your work today?

JS My early experiences have influenced my point of view as an artist. I spent my childhood on a farm whiling away the days at play in the woods and creek and helping with farm chores. This connection to rural life and the natural world became integral to my lifestyle and eventually the fodder for my studio practice. Simultaneously, my parents took us to the city regularly for visits to museums, theatre performances and concerts. I grew up with diverse and culturally rich experiences which continue to inform what I enjoy and how I live my life today. These personal experiences are my familiar and all my work addresses experiences that I know intimately in hopes that viewers can bring their own experiences to the work that triggers a personal memory for them.

HR In works like Dad’s Workshop and the Weights and Measures series, ordinary tools and objects seem to become something more like memorials, preserving not just the objects themselves but a sense of the people and places associated with them. Could you speak about the role of memory in shaping pieces like these, and what you hope they convey to your viewers?

JS My work comes from personal experience and what has been important to me in my life. Sculptural vessels, inspired by utilitarian kitchen bowls, formed the basis for an older series. The domestic realm was the basis of my work for many years. It was time to move out of the home and into other aspects of my personal experience. The impetus for this series began from personal memories of experiences, found and created utilitarian objects are used to celebrate the everyday – the mundane of life. I am attempting to elevate our everyday lives to meaningful celebratory moments. Most of us have a few transformational moments in our lives, but most of our time on earth is comprised of ordinary moments that are taken for granted. It is these ordinary moments seen in the grouping of objects that are my focus for this series.

For instance, like many of us, I have a memory of going into my father’s workshop, filled with jars of screws, oil cans, and other left-over but useful items. This was his everyday – but my memory of it is a magical place that I loved to explore. Dad’s Workshop celebrates that memory through the cast handmade paper and woven forms that resemble a shirt (modeled after an army issued shirt he wore all his life), oil cans, containers, rolls of wire, and a bowl filled with miscellaneous, unidentified elements.

Weights and Measures suggests my memory of a storeroom in the barn filled with animal feed and hooks on the wall. The rope, hay fork, measuring scoop, range gauge and other objects move beyond the memory to suggest ways life is measured physically and metaphorically.

HR You’ve developed an extraordinary range of skills and techniques across papermaking, basketry, and sculptural construction. But beyond the techniques themselves, there is a recognizable visual language that unites your work. If we think of that language as having its own diction and vocabulary, what would you identify as its essential elements?

JS This is such an interesting question. I began my art journey through ceramics and weaving. Over the years, the variety of techniques used in my work sprung from the range of processes and techniques incorporated into my teaching of the MU fiber classes. As new processes were incorporated into my teaching, they also found their way into my personal studio practice. Problem finding and solving bring me great joy. As new problems arose in the work, the variety of techniques used in my teaching infiltrated the work. Over the years, these techniques evolved and merged to become their own language. Stitching is used for its expressive line quality. Basketry techniques are the basis for sculptural forms. Reed is used to develop strong structure, while waxed linen and other soft materials are incorporated for their texture and tactile qualities. Handmade paper can provide structure but also appear delicate and skin-like or tough and strong. It is the dichotomy of the illusion of soft and seductive but tough and long lasting that inform how and why the materials/techniques are used in the work. This is the language and syntax of the work.

HR Many of the objects in this exhibit suggest a practical purpose without actually revealing one. They might resemble tools, instruments, or objects used in some unfamiliar ritual. There’s something almost magical about that ambiguity. To what extent are you thinking about function when you make these forms, and/or does their sense of purpose emerge through the process of making them?

JS Magical Realism and Trompe L’oeil have always intrigued me. This new work begins to address these notions more succinctly than previous bodies of work. It is intentional that the objects feel magical as though they have a function or ritual purpose that is unknown. Although all of the objects in the series Tools of Suspect Origin began with a utilitarian object, the challenge for me was how far could the object be pushed so that it still contained the original suggestion of its function but has moved well beyond into a sculptural realm that merely suggests there may be some function.

HR As your former student and someone who has drawn inspiration from your example and advice for more than two decades, I can’t think about your work without considering the role of stitching. When I was studying fibers, I came to associate stitching with the passage of time and the dedication of labor, as well as a connection to my matriarchal lineage, both familial and artistic, through the traditions of “women’s work.” Visible stitching appears throughout your work, but even in sculptural pieces that don’t incorporate cloth, I see a similar visual language in repeated elements like knots and handmade paper “beads.” How do you think about the role of stitching in your work, both as a physical process and as a form of mark-making that carries meaning?

JS I come from a long line of seamstresses and tailors in my family. My mother taught me to hand stitch at the age of 5 and I learned to use a sewing machine at age 8. Stitching by hand and by machine are part and parcel to my upbringing and definitely a reference to my domestic roots. During the history of my professional life, stitching has continued to play a major role. It is part of the structure for some work. For other pieces it provides an expressive linear or textural element. It is often used in lieu of a drawn element with charcoal or graphite because it seems to work better than drawing by hand for me. Other moments stitching is used as the subject of the piece itself. It is one more element that contributes to the language of my work.

HR Nature is present in your work not only as inspiration but as material itself. In some of these pieces, you’ve transformed actual leaves into handmade paper, preserving their shapes and colors while giving them an entirely different permanence. In cast paper constructions, you’ve processed natural fibers like flax and abaca into papers with particular physical qualities and sculptural durability. What interests you about that transformation, and about the relationship between the ephemeral and the enduring?

JS I have been an avid gardener since childhood. When I learned how to make paper and weave baskets, growing and harvesting some of the materials used for making the work seemed important to connect directly to the work. Over time, leaves became a material for the work as well. What interests me about all these materials is that they come from the natural environment, which has always been integral to my life. Secondly, I enjoy how the materials are transformed through a variety of ways they are processed. I use natural materials primarily because of their connection to nature, but also because they are perceived as fragile and fugitive. However, they are not. The handmade paper and leaves are strong, tough, and skin-like. They can be opaque or transparent. I want this tension in my work. It suggests who we are as humans – fragile, but strong and resilient.

HR You’ve described your artistic practice as “hard work, lyrical play and how I make sense of the world.” I love the suggestion that making art is simultaneously a discipline, a pleasure, and a way of understanding. After so many years of working and teaching, what continues to surprise you in the studio?

JS Each day is a surprise. Some days are more surprising than others. What drives my work is the discipline of daily practice but also the moments when I am inspired by looking out my window at a bird on its perch, a squirrel running along the fence or the expressive, linear quality of the grapevines on my daily hikes. I never tire of looking at our visual world. These quotidian moments inform and inspire. The collage work is the antithesis of the sculptural work and perhaps illustrates most clearly how the element of surprise enters the work. The sculptural work requires sketching, hours of contemplation and execution, while collage is a way to respond immediately to the moment. Many of the collages never leave the studio as they are made to think through ideas – another way to sketch. Others find their way to become finished work. Made from scraps of leftover handmade paper, paint, and stitching, cut apart and reassembled, they are a way to meditate on a feeling, respond to the moment or just play with new ideas. These elements constantly feed me and continue to provide that element of surprise – even after more than 50 years of making.