AN INTERVIEW BY GRACE TELEGDY

“What world do we want to live in? What worlds can we imagine filled with care, creativity, compassion, and cooperation?”

It is these questions that Jessie Rose Vala offers us whilst simultaneously providing sculptures, video installations, and visual productions that provide some clarity.

Vala imagines explosively vibrant stone and brass worlds by utilizing inspiration from ecology, mythology, and the authenticity of those around her.

Maria and Camille, 2024.
Stoneware.
78” x 48” x 8”.
Courtesy of the artist

THE LAB MAG: Can you tell us a bit about you, your history? How has your art changed throughout your career?

Jessie Rose Vala: I pretty much grew up in the NW and it has had a profound effect on me. The Pacific Northwest is very epic, we are in the ring of fire, there are volcanoes, deserts, evergreen forests, lush river valleys and even some red rock. One of my favorite places growing up and still to this day are the lava fields in the homelands of the Wasco, Warm Springs and Piute peoples out east in the Cascades. I think these landscapes have informed how I see and feel the world.

I was lucky to grow up in a household where art and design were revered. We had a good collection of books I would pour over. One of my faves was Tales of Mystery and Imagination by Edgar Allan Poe, illustrated by Harry Clarke. I would sneak out and flip through it at night. These drawings deeply inspired me-there was so much pattern, detailed line work, and strange happenings. There are a few illustrations where it appears that the plant life has completely overtaken the human figures, which brings my mind to Swamp Thing. Who I have been thinking about lately.

Recently I have noticed how much my art has not changed. Largely my ideas have stayed hovering around the same concerns, forms, motifs while the narratives have become more layered, and that is partly due to living longer', an accumulation of research and perspectives.

That said I have honed my skills and expanded upon materials-which of course shifts and changes through years of practice and exploration, which is ongoing.

THE LAB MAG: In what ways are you inspired by what is around you?

JESSIE ROSE VALA: I am inspired by animals (including us), plants, geology, cognitive science, archaeo/astronomy, loss/emotions, art, poetry, comics, films, pop culture (esp. west coast new age culture), music-really so much. I am constantly concerned with our present cultures disconnect with our home aka PLANET EARTH.

I live out in a temperate rain forest on the edge of the coast range. My landlord moved out here in the 70’s and built up this whole place, woodbutcher style. All the trees and plant life around me inspire me. I have my studio out here, the colors affect me. The blue hue of the light, all the shades of greens, the array of browns, and the density of life. Simultaneously this is one of the heaviest logged zones-so the clear cuts and the shady replanting practices keep me actively immersed in the destruction and short-sightedness of contemporary logging practices and extraction economies. (A great podcast about this is in this region is Timber Wars)

Currently, one of the things I am inspired by is lacrymatory bottles. A small glass vessel but sometimes terracotta, found in tombs going back more than 3,000 years throughout the East and Mediterranean. Also known as tear catchers. I had a fellowship at Urban Glass in Brookly a few years back where I worked with artist Grace Whiteside to create some contemporary ones. The current technology of blowing glass is quite different from the past so it ended up being quite tricky. Thanks to the suggestion of their awesome tech and artist James Corporan I made these molds out of this trippy new material that allowed for good detail and re-use. Grace figured out a way to have it half blown and half using these blow molds I made. So figuring out processes is also inspiring, and it is always such an extra bonus to get to work with other artists.

This summer I have been completing ceramic works that incorporate these glass tear catchers-these sculptures suggest rituals for grieving and loss specifically centered around endangered and extinct species. The installation will be at OSU (Oregon State University) in fall and is called Sympathetic Spells.

I am also very much inspired by people in my life. To name a few: Camile Sproesser, Maria Pinto, Sto Len, Faten Kanaan, Rick Silva, Kelie Bowman, Miel Paredes… They all have been fierce inspirations lately. Not only for the creative work they all are doing currently but how they live and navigate the world.

THE LAB MAG: What does your process look like when creating an installation?

JESSIE ROSE VALA: On a process level-they often start with ongoing questions/fascinations or deep concerns, and research. Other times it can be a fast hit, as in a vision of something I just want to make (or sometimes a combination of all of these things). From there it expands out, kinda like a network, along the way there are a lot of failures. Failure is important and is so valuable, also that is part of the fun and sometimes anguish, very much true to life.

While research often plays a role in my process I do largely work intuitively. There is a point where all the research becomes quite murky inside me, kinda like compost or a dream mixing in with my own experiences, tendencies and history. From here I start building, crystalizing things as I go. Some pieces can get into a bit of call and response - as I am working with a material, a color, or a form. So certain works are a clear vivid vision and often are built close to it. Other times it is a dialogue with the piece, I have to do my best to show up and see what it wants, where to go with it.

Simultaneously, creating installations is a big push for me, it is always a complex dance of limited time and money along with my ambition. I love to create entire installations and I always want to take it further. It really is a rarity that a project gets lots of support and resources and this of course is a reflection of our current society and culture. I do think this is an important point to bring up, for example the NEA has been chipped away at for decades.

The recent cut has already had a profound impact across the nation and I have already seen the effects on important art spaces in my community. The Art world in the States is fiercely competitive due to such little funding and resources-I think of all the voices this leaves out, all the work that is limited by this. I want artists to thrive. Sorry to go off on a tangent! These are conversations I have with artists and more than ever I feel this urgency-what world do we want to live in? What worlds can we imagine filled with care, creativity, compassion, and cooperation?

The Holding, 2018.
4 Channels.
From Time/Object/Conduit exhibition
Courtesy of artist Jessie Rose Vala

THE LAB MAG: What liberties do you think video arts provide creatives? What can you do with video that you can’t do with other mediums?

JESSIE ROSE VALA: I love video art because it gets me out of the studio. It is an adventure to capture footage. I have been run off by four SUV cars filled with military personnel. I have been pummeled by sand and freezing cold (shout out to my friend Annie Beeson for wearing a flimsy costume in the film while the sand and wind destroyed my camera).

Although lately I have been wanting to do some animations which would really keep me in the studio but that brings up another aspect of video-anything is possible. I am quite passionate about the composite, the technology of the green screen-this ultimate place of pure possibility-the alpha channel. I also love the challenge of editing-here you have this timeline-a linear timeline in the editing software, presented visually as a line with a beginning and end. Now what are the ways to disrupt the linearity of it? And this gets one into the experimentation of looping video, multi-channel installations, composites etc.

THE LAB MAG: Could you speak a bit more about mythology and ecology? They are ever-present in your work, and I am curious as to why and when you become interested in (re)creating them.

JESSIE ROSE VALA: Approaching this first in a very basic way, ecology-our world, the deep interconnectness of all things/mythologies-stories we tell that ultimately create our reality/perspectives (which can be vessels of such care and wisdom or so damn destructive).

I am drawn to older mythologies for sure. I grew up being told that history is important and is something that needs constant research and learning. How many histories have been lost? Ignored? It is a life long education. I also grew up with Joseph Cambell books around-so there is this early influence too. So back to looking at mythologies in history, I think there is so much to be learned about humanity, how we process and pattern the world around us. How looking to the past can help me better understand the present as well as certain timeless qualities of existence.

I am drawn to occult art and ancient objects of ritual and/or veneration of the timeless. Also this classic exploration of how to communicate the unseen and with the unseen. Life and death are very mysterious, I love how cognitive science and physics more and more seem to center on this-how much is unknown. Many mythologies of creation also mirror these conversations through metaphor, symbol, and form.

Specific artifacts and stories strike me, often they haunt me until I unravel the conversation I want to have with them. The forms that capture me are often female or animal, and especially hybrid forms. I am drawn to mythologies that center on the hybrid and that place the human in deep interconnection with the cosmos and nature.

Which brings us back to ecology-the importance of the relationship, or another way to put it is the mesh. Which takes me to Dark Ecology by Timothy Morton. A book that super resonated with me. I feel this is an important book for academia, one that destabilizes the insane Western idea that humans somehow stand apart from ecologies.

To dig a bit deeper into the latter part of the question I also dig OOO (object oriented ontology and ideas of vibrant matter), how an object like everything holds this vitality, this life, how they shift and change through time not just in their materiality but in their meanings, they are alive and ever changing. So when building works that are in relationship with an ancient form I see it as a conversation that is very much alive traversing time and space. There is a lot of complexity -also how looking towards the past-there is so much present tense in it-how these objects are viewed, studied often mirror contemporary perspectives.

THE LAB MAG: The female form is used frequently in your sculptures. What about the female form speaks to you?

JESSIE ROSE VALA: I scribbled with the best of them and when I started drawing anything representational it was female characters, animals, and hybrids. I was very much in a world with my mom and sister, adored all my girlfriends. So the female form largely comes from personal experiences and base tendencies.

In another sense these stories and forms are the ones I am passionate about championing. We live in a very male dominated society and the list of endangered species keeps growing. So partly it is simply what I know and who I want to uphold.

(From L to R) Hairy Mary, 2022.
Cut brass, stoneware, & neon.
15” x 17” x 35”.
Ace of Wands, 2019.
Stoneware, epoxy, & neon.
36” x 16” x 8.5”.
Tears of Inanna, 2022.
Stoneware, epoxy, & neon.
33” x 15” x 30.5”.
All images courtesy of artist Jessie Rose Vala

THE LAB MAG: How do you see the future of art given the rapid progression and implementation of AI?

JESSIE ROSE VALA: What I think of mostly when pondering AI is how it uses up so much water and how this is the key element (as in elemental force) in the great changes that are to come and are currently happening. My dream is for us to move slower with technology-here we are rushing headlong into AI without full consideration to the true expense of it -as in the minerals that are mined to name a few - lithium, cobalt, rare earth minerals and of course the water used to cool the data centers.

Let’s take cobalt. It is well known that many of these mines are absolute nightmares, or finding lithium in very delicate ecosystems. So, if companies were to truly act responsibly, learn from the past and present, they would slow down and figure out a way to create this in a truly non-violent and sustainable way. We are such crafty animals, I believe it is possible. But of course this comes down to how we think of the world around us, as a resource or our home. Our home meaning this planet and all life upon it, including the rocks, the minerals, the water, the fire, the plants, the bacteria on and on and on.

So, this is where I land with AI. Its reliance on violent methods of extraction, exploitation of human labor and the vast usage of water. This overlaps with many current technologies we use daily. Perhaps if we could figure out a more viable way to create AI there could be some wondrous things, if we are of sound heart and mind with our world and treat all life with equal dignity and respect perhaps there could be a rad version of AI. AI being a reflection of ourselves.

To circle back to your initial question there is exciting work being done by artists utilizing AI. Someone I think of, off the bat, is Ari Melenciano. So in the future I think art can bring a lot to the conversation with and about AI. Art works can provide a critical and imaginative lens with consideration to the ethics and uncanny power of such technology.

***Meteorite Mama,*** *2024.*
Stoneware, neon, cut acrylic, & cement.
*96” x 63” x 69”*
*Image courtesy of artist Jessie Rose Vala*

Meteorite, Meteorite, 2024.
2 channel video looping embedded in Meteorite Mama. All images courtesy of artist Jessie Rose Vala

THE LAB MAG: Our upcoming edition of the magazine revolves around the theme FORM. What does form mean to you as an artist?

JESSIE ROSE VALA: There is this aspect to form, the material that creates the form, and what that brings. The knowledge that our bodies, the soil, clay, on and on are all made up of a plethora of entities. These entities that come together are vastly varied in scale all cooperating creating form/s, life, hybrids. It’s vast and beautiful.

One of my longest loves is with ceramics; the longevity and strength of the material along with its fragility. It holds both the sacred and the profane; we shit in a porcelain toilet while it is also the material that allows space travel. There is also this alchemical side to it, undergoing structural transformations through heat.

I adore building forms out of clay. I prefer architectural clay bodies with heavy grog. This clay body takes to form so quickly, yet plastic and full of texture. I am always a little sad when a piece comes out of the kiln for the last time. I am very much in love with it in its wet and bisque state, these states of raw possibilities.

Back to FORM, what it means to me as an artist, I feel forms hold our stories, perspectives, dreams and insights, while also quite mysterious in nature.

Jessie Rose Vala: Vessels of Care

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