November 2024 AIR: Jade WIlliams
Jade engages in the radical traditions of alteration, adornment, collecting, and congregating
Hey Jade! Can’t wait to have you close out our 2024 residency cycle. Tell us more about your ideas of world building and how they mesh into your practice.
In 2016, I set out on a journey to build a series of spaces that reflected the ideal safe spaces for myself and other Black Womxn to be our most authentic selves in. Through that journey, I landed on the question “if this is such a safe space, why do I feel the need to be saved?” Not knowing how pivotal that question would be to my practice, it led me on the journey “home” and allowed me to make myself (mind, body and spirit) the safest space of all. Since then, my practice has been a reflection of that journey and an effort to encourage others to do the same.
As I’ve moved through life and the different experiences it brought, my practice (and therapy) have given me an outlet to process the many emotions that come up. From there, I’m able to mourn, honor/celebrate, or create new and alternative outcomes for these moments that I’m working through. I usually find a material or method that feels related to the moment I’m processing and I’ll use that as a jumping off point for the next piece or body of work. I flow between writing and making, but the end result always embodies these emotions/moments, collaged with whatever my current research is.
Creating cyanotypes has been a part of your practice for a while, how did you come to this process?
My first set of cyanotypes were really created through a combination of experimentation, collaboration, and “happy accidents”. At the time, I was in another residency program and was sharing my process with a fellow artist and our curator for the program. I wanted to find another method of integrating my research and writing practice with my visual works and decided to make a “blueprint” for the world I’ve been building and my colleague shared that they had a friend who owned an old blueprint printing press. We tried to connect to get the series done, but the timing wasn’t working out. Ironically, I’m super grateful that it didn’t because it was that pressure to find an alternative that led me to trying cyanotypes on my own. And now it’s become one of my favorite mediums to work with.
I love this line from your statement, “she engages in the radical traditions of alteration, adornment, collecting, and congregating”. What garments do you hold dear as you have collected and congregated?
I’ve saved collections of old jewelry, night gowns, church gloves and other embellishments from the women in my family–specifically my mother, great-aunts, and grandmother. Now it’s become somewhat of a family practice and they all call me whenever something breaks/tears/becomes too small to see if I want to use it. I used to say yes to everything and I realized how quickly things can pile up, so now I try to only save things that give me a full-bodied “yes”.
Is there a designer, contemporary or historical, that you look to for inspiration?
As a textile artist and designer, interior design enthusiast and craftsperson, I’m always researching artists/designers from the art nouveau period and the arts and crafts movement. However, when it comes to specific creators, there are so many Black Womxn who have been continuous sources of inspiration for me–especially my mother and grandmothers–and the way they’ve designed and curated our family homes over the years.
I’m a huge fan of artists such as Wangechi Mutu, Lorna Simpson, Betye Saar, Renee Cox, Renee Stout, Adrian Piper, Cauleen Smith, and Simone Leigh. And I’ve just come across the work of Clarissa Sligh–I’m geeked about the parallels between our works and excited to dive more into her story!
Furthermore, I’m always looking to my peers and other Chicago based contemporaries for inspiration.
How does the practice of healing and healing rituals play a role in your work?
I started on this current direction of my practice as a means to heal my inner child and many of my works have come from periods of immense grief. I’ve used my practice to help process/work through my emotions on several occasions and often use it to create alternative narratives to my life experiences. In regards to the ritual aspect, I’d say that my overall process for making a new body of work is a sort of ritual. Sitting and creating so many repetitive forms can quickly put me in a meditative state.
Working with my organization, The Black Bloom Project has been an unexpected source of healing for me as well. As a descendant of generations of farmers, gardeners, and agricultural workers, references from the natural world are always the root of my art pieces. With The BBP, I work with local communities to create embellished fabric blooms and other plant-based projects. Though I started it with the intention to build a community around wellness, and share my creativity, I did not realize how satisfying it would feel to know that I am making an immediate impact in my city. Being able to not just build community , but serve through my art has been super rewarding.
Jade Williams
Jade Williams (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and writer whose practice reflects the ways that she engages in the radical traditions of alteration, adornment, collecting, and congregating. Using textiles, family heirlooms, embellishments and other reflective materials, her world-building works investigate how she is both building and becoming an ideal home for her inner child and future selves. Jade received her BFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign and is a graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her works have been exhibited at spaces including the Krannert Art Museum, the Evanston Art Center, the Leather Archives and Museum, Dominican University, and Woman Made Gallery. Jade is a 2021 HATCH Artist Resident with the Chicago Artists Coalition, a 2022 Luminarts Cultural Foundation Fellow in Visual Arts, and a 2022 Economic Securities Project Artist Fellow. She currently lives and works in the Chicago Area where she's tending to her collective, The Black Bloom Project.