Prop Styling, Wardrobe Styling, H&MU, Photography + Art Direction by Jessa Carter
Model Jenn Hotes
Paris Fashion Week Fall 2017 Coverage for SPACE at Nordstrom with Laura Cassidy and Olivia Kim
Jacquemus
Vejas
Y-Project
LVMH Prize
Undercover
Junya Watanabe
Comme des Garçons
Sea NY
Ellery
Wardrobe Totokealo
Styling Michele Andrews
Model Kristin Henry
Philippines, December 2016 / Kodak Porta Color 400 / Ilford Black & White 3200
Digital Photography / Direction in collaboration with Jillayne Hunter
Jessa Carter | Ria Leigh
3 Hour Durational Performance, Endurance Vocalization
Ceramic, Caulk, Brass, Aluminum, Plastic, Denim, Mesh, Timer, Hand Broom, Dust Pan, Paper
Art Helix, Brooklyn, New York 2016
Performance Documentation by Kirby Calvin & Cleo Barnette
Process Documentation by Jessa Carter and Ria Leigh
Paris Fashion Week Spring 2017 Coverage for SPACE at Nordstrom with Laura Cassidy and Olivia Kim
Y-Project
Jacquemus
Acne
Ellery
Kenzo
Koche
Vetements
Vejas
4 Hour Durational Performance, Endurance Vocalization
The Terminal Sales Building, 3rd flr, 1st ave, Seattle Wa
May 1st, Sunday, during the May Day Protest, 2016
"I'm the vestal priestess of a secret I have forgotten. And I serve the forgotten danger. I found out something I could not understand, my lips were sealed, and all I've got are incomprehensible fragments of a ritual." - Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G.H.
Twelve artists, three Prime Movers Jessa Carter, Jillayne Hunter, KB Thomas. The event was unadvertised, guests received invitations by mail. Forty-three guests attended.
Guests arrived in the lobby and were met by an eight-year-old girl who took them four at a time to the 3rd floor by elevator. All phones where taken from guests, placed in bio hazard bags, secured in woven baskets behind glass cases and guarded all evening. Garbs for guests to dawn before they entered the space were hand-dyed with madder root, indigo, turmeric, and alkanet root.
A cellist wearing a kombucha mother mask played unrehearsed as the guests entered. On the alter table covered by two parachutes were twenty hand-thrown vessels with glazed red interiors filled with plant and animal (blue yogurt) offerings. Only fresh spring rolls were served to the guests. Three women prime movers sat covering themselves with rice paper, dried petals, and tea. They drank champaign while the guests where sober. Five vocalists jumped on trampolines while they emitted four hours of improvised wordless chorus. Six parakeets scented with Rose Otto, Violet, Coffee Bean, Tuberose Absolute, Rhododendron Leaf, Seaweed Absolute, Basil Absolute, and Lemongrass on their wings moved freely around the space. One blue man lit one-hundred-and-eighty-nine candles as the sun set. The ceramisists’ six-year-old daughter tap danced with no musical accompaniment. The prime movers were garbed. The ceramisist undressed.The prime movers made her into a monument, covered her in Plaster of Paris. She was bathed in the unclean water in a claw foot tub in the center of the room. The prime movers broke every vessel on the alter table except three.
The guests were left with no image of their own to remember it by.
Themes embedded in the work and it's process : understanding as the revelation of incomprehension, facades of civility, roles, fables, mythos, ceremony, animus mundi, restrained digital image consumption, image haves and image have-nots, diachronic still image narratives, past present and future in conversation, time as a circle, reconstruction of reality by group / individual transmutation, transiency, channeled arcane half-memories of other lives and concurrent realities, further embodiment of a matriarchal shift.
Kodak Portra 400 Still Images, Digital Still Images and Polaroid Still Images by Jessa Carter, kb Thomason, Jillayne Hunter, Christopher Williams, and Sohail Fazluddin. VHS footage by Lucien Pellegrin.
Performers : Ria Leigh, Ari Leigh, Alan Sutherland, Michele Andrews, Azure Andrews, Sam Anderson, Lucien Pellegrin, Zachary Self, Jennifer Hotes, Hanna Yohannes, Connor Goulding, Isabella Du Graf, Aarin Wright, Olisa Enrico, Daniel Blue.
Special Thanks to: Laura Cassidy, Jill Donnelly, Todd Shwayder
Photography / Direction
Photography Assist by Avi Loud, Styling by Michelle Andrews, H&MU Jamyrlyn Mallory
Photography / H&MU / Direction
The House Of iA is the collaborative works of Jillayne Hunter and kb Thomason. Together they performed and created pieces around the world for 5 years, focusing on themes of betwixt binaries, being amid arrival and departure, gender, internal and external spaces.
These images capture their last moments as The House Of iA before parting for another 5 year cycle where they will create work separately and explore new collaborations and mediums.
Photography Kodak Portra 400
Brooklyn, New York 2016
Digital Photography
Tuileries Gardens Paris, 2016
Photography / Direction in collaboration with Matt Drews and XIII
Pistil gathers the worlds of performance art and techno music with a show of visual and aural immersion.
Video Editing / Direction in collaboration with Laura Cassidy
Soundtrack : Litter Shore - "Creation Myth" by Laura Cassidy, Erin Sullivan, Jessa Carter and Ria Leigh
Photography / Direction
Styling by Michele Andrews, H&MU by Lindsay Watson
A multi-media body of work by Ria Leigh
Photographed and Produced by Jessa Carter
A dance around meaning through ceramic gesture.
A gesture towards an explanation of a completely incomprehensible feeling.
A feeling placed between two mirrors.
An echo.
Shown at LOVECITYLOVE on June 17th of 2016
Portraits of artist Isabella Du Graf
Jewelry by Faris Du Graf
Wardrobe by 3 generations of the Du Graf women.
Documentation, Marketing, Space Scouting
A free series of installations and workshops starting to kick off the premier of two new works at Velocity Dance Center's Made-In Seattle Project Oct 9-11th featuring Babette Delafayette, John Marc Powell and Anna Conner + CO
FRI OCT 2, 2015
7-10PM Opening Night | Activated Installations, Sculptures, Solo Performances by Anna Conner + CO, Babette Delafayette, John Marc Powell in collaboration with The House of ia.
SAT OCT 3, 2015
10AM Open Gallery
11AM-2PM Free Immersive Workshops by Babette Delafayette
Like Men In The Folds Of A Fallen Tent
2015, Video, color, black and white, silent, projection on loop, rotten wood, performance
JOHN MARC POWELL & BABETTE DELAFAYETTE WITH THE HOUSE OF ia /// Babette DeLafayette & John Marc Powell partner together to form an omni-disciplinary entity that has developed a process called Activated Environments. Birthed in 2012, The House of ia is the collaborative conceptions of Jillayne Hunter and kb Thomason. ia exists as a nomadic nucleus.
Exercises For The Unrested : Kingmaker
2015. Ink, cinder block, water, glass, human hair , grass, rope, aluminum tub , plastic
ANNA CONNER /// Anna’s work has been commissioned and presented by Velocity Dance Center, On the Boards, Conduit, Chop Shop , Pacific Dance Makers and Movement Research at Judson Church among others. Conner has received residencies from Ponderosa dance (GER) and Velocity Dance Center (WA). Anna Conner + C O works with improvisation, collaboration, research, discussion and reflection.
Photography, Art Direction, Graphic Design
Collaborators /// Stylist Ashley Helvey, Model Alexandra, Heffner
Facilitation, Space Build-out, Fundraising, Program Design, Curatorial Photography, Copy, Design Development, Layout and Graphic Design
ROVE : a two part installation opened concurrently on August 6th 2015 at Glass Box Gallery and LOVECITYLOVE's 7th & Cherry location. Performance installation works were live streamed and projected from one location to the other. People around the world were invited to view the entire exhibition remotely from set up to tare-down.
Rove : a journey, especially one with no specific destination; an act of wandering.
Roving : a continuous strand of loosely twisted and drawn fibers, such as wool, flax, silk, or cotton, ready to be spun.
Rove is the artist’s process of creation after loss. Rove's expression is part static and part kinetic. The static is a series of large scale woven works fueled by raw, emotional, and honest states of discovery through pattern and repetition. The fiber roving in these works tethers artist Meghan Shimek to her life’s earthly journey after the recent death of her father and the deterioration of her marriage. Abrupt endings, security as an illusion, interconnection, and the dangers of a comfort zone are explored through animal fiber, sound and movement.
Through the kinetic act of ROVE, multidisciplinary artist Babette DeLafayette's durational performance invoked memorized emotional patterns, bodily borders and subconscious activation. Sound artist Earnie Ashwood played 4 improvisational pieces in reaction to Delafayette's performance. This performance occurred at LOVECITYLOVE and was projected onto a woven animal fiber environment at Glass Box Gallery.
“The physical world is diaphanous. It’s like music. When you play music, it simply disappears, there’s nothing left. And for that very reason it is one of the highest and most spiritual of the arts. So in a way you might say that transiency is a mark of spirituality. The more a thing tends to be permanent the more it tends to be lifeless. We can’t even find any stuff out of which the physical world is made. We recognize each other. I see you now and I recognize that I’ve seen you before, but what I’m really seeing is consistent pattern. Let’s suppose I have a rope and this rope begins by being manila rope and then it goes on by being cotton rope, then it goes on with being nylon, then it goes on with being silk. So I tie a knot in the rope and I move the knot down along the rope. Is it as it moves along the same knot or a different knot? There’s nothing in the physical world that is what you might call substantial. It’s pattern and this is why it’s spiritual. To be non-spiritual is to impose upon the world the idea of thingness, of substantiality. That is to be involved in matter, to identify with the body. To believe that the body is something constant and tangible. The body is actually intangible. You cannot pin it down. It’s all falling apart. It’s aging and getting older, therefore if you cling to the body you will be frustrated. The material world, the world of nature, is marvelous so long as you don’t try to lean on it. So long as and you don’t cling to it.” - Alan Watts, The Veil of Thoughts
About the artists :
Meghan Shimek is a weaver and fiber artist living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She integrates the natural beauty of her surroundings, the memory of quiet snowy nights, and the sound of the stream running under her home into every weaving. Meghan has been trained in traditional tapestry and Navajo weaving techniques; she incorporates raw fibers and objects to create abstract and textural wall hangings. Meghan also teaches beginners weaving workshops using looms that she designed.
Omni-disciplinary artist and creative entrepreneur Babette DeLafayette founded the art production company The Pendleton House in 2013. She has joined forces with visual artist John Marc Powell to form a creative entity that focuses on their practice called Activated Environments. Her work has be presented at Velocity, On The Boards, Cornish College Gallery & Playhouse, 12th Avenue Arts, LoveCityLove, Hedreen Gallery, Steel Gallery at Gage, LxWxH Gallery, Northwest Film Forum, and Decibel Music Festival.
Curated by Jessa Carter, photography and documentation by Jessa Carter
Me /// Art Direction, Location Scouting, Casting, Photography, Wardrobe Styling
My Partners /// Photo Assistant Avi Loud /// Model Mary O'regan
Shot at WINTR offices in Seattle
June 2014
Me /// Photography
My Partners /// Laura Cassidy : Writer, Editor
Fashion Week Coverage for Nordstrom's The Thread and Olivia Kim's SPACE
Me /// Art Direction Photography + Set Design
My Partners /// Avi Loud : Lighting + Photography, Michele Andrews : Styling, Jamerlyn Mallory-Wright : Hair & Makeup
LOVECITYLOVE's 7th and Cherry Location
June 2015
Photography, Prop Styling, Design for Ria Leigh 2016 Dinnerware Collection
Me /// Concept Development, Art Direction, Prop Styling, Graphic Design
My Partners /// Photographer Charlie Schuck
SS 2014 Look Book
Still frames and digital collage based on an art happening at LOVECITYLOVE'S 7th & Cherry location . Jennifer Hotes, Michele Andrews, Lucien Pellegrin, Faris Du Graf jewelry
August 2015
Art Direction : Jessa Carter, Faris Du Graf, Laura Sullivan-Cassidy
Photography : Jessa Carter Avi Loud &
Styling : Laura Cassidy
August 2015
Behind-the-scenes photos of Nordstrom's SPACE online editorial.
September 2015
Director, Video, Editor
Jenne Hotes, Performance artist
Concept Development, Project Management, Merchandizing, Installation, Photography, Copy Writing : Jessa Carter
CLOSED CIRCUIT : CONCEPT SHOP AT LOVECITYLOVE
A shoppable installation of Seattle made objects & goods. featuring Lucien Pellegrin, Rachel Ravitch, Aleksandra Pollner, &c, Meghan Shimek, Oddinary, Ladies & Gentlemen, Faris, Mia Fioravanti, Kimberly Baker, April Pride, Lu, Gender by Ole Severson, Bridget O'Brien Smith, Lauren Klenow, Wyatt Orr, Tea Project, Amateurs Studios and curated products from Cairo, Prism & Daughter of Wands.
This temporary installation stems from past and present observation of flow in the digital age and the directions it has propelled us in. On the one end it has propelled us towards quick fabrication, automatic responses, endless distraction, the branded self, a sea of appropriation. The counterpoint is a propulsion towards craft, mindfulness, focus, collectivity, a longing for authenticity and new application of technology.
By definition a CLOSED CIRCUIT is an uninterrupted path of flow. The birth of the internet and connective technology has spawned a new landscape of creation. The designers in our shop and designers all over the world are cross pollinating in a multitude of ways as a result of this new landscape. Their personal influences morph and expand, incorporating shared ideas but are translated through a unique filter of individually nuanced understanding. This collection of pieces consider common threads and divergence all at once.
As devices become near extensions of our bodies, important paths are cut off, severed or severely impeded. Spiritual, intuitive, focused, and patient paths are often stifled.
Can you take the time to step into the sand box to get what you want?
Can you be bothered to affect the pattern and then restore it?
Can you pause to reflect on the future and observe that once vital technology has and will always at some point be denounced to ornamentation and decorative nostalgia?
How will an authentic and fabricated life work towards something new instead of clashing against one another?
The infiniteness of universal flow unrecognized will flow regardless. Man-made technology unconsidered will short circuit.
Me /// Concept Development, Visual Merchandizing, Graphic Design, Copy Writing, Marketing Video Direction, Photography.
My Partners /// Co-Concept Developer, Visual Merchandizer, Graphic Designer & Product Curator Charlie Schuck /// Cinematographer Jacob Rosen /// Projection Mapping Patrick Wright /// Sound Design Patrick Wright & Amos Miller /// Photography Avi Loud
March 2014 at Love City Love Gallery
Like the flowers of spring, the certainty of brilliance by way of design keeps us optimistic and in anticipation of the new season. As winter slowly recedes we welcome the inevitability of rebirth.
This was a celebrate a return to the future! FUTURE THIS NOW showcased modern design set against a backdrop of floral wonder. Attendees observed considered allure, essential structures and the revitalizing qualities of color through home objects, furniture and jewelry.
The exhibition included installations that explore the transcendence of industrial confines and the anticipation of the new and next.
Featuring work from
Erich Ginder
Iacoli & Mcallister
Ladies & Gentlemen Studios
Semi-Goods
Aleph Geddis
Drift & Stone
John Hogan
Jason Rens
Aleksandra Pollner
Free Time Industries
Faris
Oblik Atelier
Sensebellum
Jacob Rosen
Patrick Wright
Me /// Concept Development, Direction
My Partners /// Cinematographer Avi Loud /// Actors Lucien Pellegrin & Burge Burgess
Me /// Art Direction Photography + Set Design
My Partners /// Avi Loud : Lighting + Photography, Michele Andrews : Styling, Jamerlyn Mallory-Wright : Hair & Makeup
LOVECITYLOVE's 7th and Cherry Location
June 2015
Me /// Project Management, Co-Curator
My Partners /// Artist, Writer, Co-Curator Laura Sullivan Cassidy
LOOSE LEAF is a three-fold experience. Two parts of the show are made up of written and assembled work by Seattle writer, editor, and creative director Laura Sullivan Cassidy; the third part is a group exhibit curated and organized by Love City Love's Jessica Carter and Sullivan Cassidy.
1. The pages of Sullivan Cassidy’s short fiction collection THESE THINGS NEVER HAPPENED were shown unbound and hung on the wall in the manner of two-page pre-production publication spreads.
2. A collection of gathered, distorted, and obliquely annotated images were shown—also in the manner of two-page pre-production publication spreads—as wind-blown LOOSE LEAF detritus on the gallery floor.
3. Curated recent or in-progress work, with commentary (or story), by a variety of Seattle practitioners such as Dylan Nuewirth, Eleanor Petry, Joey Veltkamp, Jesse Brown, Erin Frost, Victoria Haven, Erin Sullivan and more make up a component called WHAT IS NOW. This work was photographed and hung in the manner of two-page poster sized pre-production.
Inside the gallery, LOOSE LEAF’s displayed pages evoked three chapters of an anthology; the experience of the show will replace the experience of binding and distribution; the visitor’s interaction with his/her chosen pages will be substitute for reading.
October, 2014, LxWxH Gallery
Me /// Photography, Journeyer
Me /// Concept Development, Art Direction, Brand Development, Casting, Location Scouting, Graphic Design, In-Store Merchandizing, Photography, Print Design.
My Partners /// Co-Photographer : Eric Ruff /// Model : Shimea
FW 2014 Look Book
Collection Launch at Voyager Shop in San Francisco
Hand Dyed Marble TABI SOCKS
