Usable artworks in terrycloth 

100% cotton towels 
For the beach or the home 
Designed by rising artists 
Jacquard-woven in the USA 
And never mass-produced

Limited editions for art lovers 
And gourmet bathers alike

With other sunshine essentials 
Handmade by our talented friends

A project by Jessica Thornton Murphy
In San Francisco, California

Made possible by:

ARTISTS

• Tyler Cross





Sun Buns | June 2020

Tyler Cross is an artist based in Oakland, California. Although he is best known for the ceramic sculpture he makes in collaboration with his boyfriend, Kyle Lypka, Tyler maintains a focused solo practice of sculpture, painting, and drawing which poetically explores his fascination with the complicated relationship between art and functionality. Using a private language of color and shapes, echoes of which dance fluidly from his flat to three-dimensional works, Tyler constructs paradoxical artifacts and the abstracted, uncanny landscapes from where they came. 



Photos by Macayli Hausmann

A conversation with Tyler from June 2022
Featured in Plunge Rag Vol. 2

PLUNGE: What part of your art process excites you?

TYLER: Drawing in my notebook is my favorite part. It’s less risky. I think when it comes to making ceramic sculpture with Kyle, if it’s being made off of a drawing I know what the beginning point, is whereas with painting I don’t really know where it’s gonna go. If there’s anything I’ve learned from working with clay it’s that patience is really important and that’s something I’ve carried over to my painting practice. I’ve started to go a lot slower and take more time with things. I think it allows me to sit with things and have things arrive versus make them happen. I think the beginning is something that always excites me, or gives me an unknown feeling.

Do you spend most of your time working collaboratively with Kyle? How much of your practice is devoted to your own work?

Recently I’ve been working on my own stuff more but in all honesty I’m more excited about the work that we make collaboratively. There are things that I’m doing for my show that I haven’t done before, so I’m excited to see how that goes, like light sculptures, and also I haven’t made a lot of metal work so that’s gonna be a new thing.

Will this be your first solo show?  

Yeah, it feels good. I feel like I’m just making what I want to see and before I was concerned about what people want to see. After talking to Kyle I realized it’s not important and I should really just focus on what I want to make.

Do those concerns come from thinking about how the work will sell? 

Yep, I was making things and wondering, “Is anyone gonna buy that?”. I don’t really feel like that should be the reason why people make artwork. I should just make it because I want to. I don’t think I’m at the point in my career where I should be concerned if someone’s gonna buy something or not cause to even consider myself as an artist is kinda hard for me to think about. 

Why is that?

I’ve done art for myself in a private way for so long that putting a word to it always felt uncomfortable to me. I don’t really want to consider myself as an artist. I think it’s hard to explain and I don’t really know how to put it into words…

Do you feel like the production jobs you’ve taken on, like making the JB Blunk cups and vases for Carter & Co, have pushed your practice because you’re doing things that you wouldn’t normally be doing? 

Well, Kyle and I started making vases for fun and that’s what sparked our whole collaborative project. Making vases was the beginning, so it’s resorting back to something that we were already doing and it’s also a way to get back into the swing of things. When we moved studios and weren’t making as much work for a little while we started making vases to warm up. 

How did you first start making vases together?

Kyle made a vase for me as a gift and I liked it and wanted to make my own. Then I started drawing sculptures and Kyle wanted to make them.

Was that your first time making ceramics? 

No, I actually did a lot at San Francisco Art Institute. I could have minored in sculpture. I needed to take one more class but that would have required me to stay for another semester, which would have been a lot of money so I didn’t.

Where do you find your inspiration?

The graph paper in my notebook. I can start with straight lines, which I feel like is something that is reoccurring the sculpture that Kyle and I produce. 

I like that because the Sun Buns towel you made has the grid on it. You have a snake shape that recurs often, too. Where does that come from?

When I was going to school at SFAI a lot of the paintings I was doing had these kind of forms, like an alphabet of shapes basically, and I wasn’t really aware that I was even doing that until we had a class visit by Jenny Gheith, who works at SF MoMA. She made me think about what I was doing a little more and pointed out that I was working with a reservoir of shapes. 

Has that impacted how you go about making work now? 

More so in the beginning, not as much now. The snake shape became a stamp that we put on the bottom of our production work and Kyle’s and my collaborative sculpture. That’s our signature now.

How often are you making art?

I feel like it’s not enough. I felt like when I wasn’t working as much I would be in here days during the week and on the weekend. But then I also spend my job making work, so I feel like I am always working on art but it’s for someone else. I work for the artist Liam Everett and have been for seven years. 

Does making art with Liam give you momentum to work on your own projects? 

Yep, totally. Because then I get to think about things in a different way. Here lately it’s been more sculpture and with him it’s painting. They’re not two different worlds but they’re two different mediums that function very differently. I joke with him that sculpture is harder because there are more things that can go wrong. I feel like you can finish a painting in a month but then working on a large sculpture and having it finished in a month is risky with dry-time. 

In your personal practice are you mostly making sculpture? You mentioned making lights and metal objects for your upcoming show. 

Well I don’t want them to be “lamps” so I’m trying to think about how to talk about them. At first I was thinking that the element that would cover the lightbulb would be ceramic and Kyle made me think about them being metal because a ceramic sconce is more common. But then also the lighting sculpture idea came from working at the JB Blunk Estate. In the Blunk house you could see all these lights on the wall attached to a pull chain… I used to think art and function should be two different things and now I don’t think it’s that cut and dry. I feel like design is a kind of high art just like a painting or a sculpture. So for me to be deterred from wanting to make a light because it’s something that has a function just isn’t a good enough reason not to make it. I wanted to see it in the world so we made it. Metal as a material is so foreign to me so I think I’ll be sticking with clay for this project. 

It seems like it was inspiring to have spent time in a place like the JB Blunk house where art consistently meets functionality. 

Totally, and I love that. Whereas I feel like Kyle’s and my work is going in the opposite direction and is seeming less functional. 

But it’s a nice illusion — the sculptures look like functional vessels but they’re impractical and non-working. They become very painterly in that way... How does making art make you feel? 

I feel like when I’m really in it, I’m in a trance or something… time kind of speeds up and I’m completely in what I’m doing. 

How will you know when you’ve arrived or succeeded?

I don’t really know. In some ways I feel like I have because I’m still making work and I feel like a lot of people go to school for “art” and don’t really continue the practice, but I feel like I have to. I have to be working on something or something has to be in the works. Whether it’s Kyle making a sculpture, I’m glazing a sculpture, or there’s paint drying upstairs, et cetera… 

What are you most proud of?

I think the sculpture work I’ve made with Kyle has been some of the work I’m most proud of, because we have arrived at something that we both didn’t know could exist. 

☺

TYLER HAS BEEN BUSY OVER THE LAST SEVERAL MONTHS. SOME OF HIS WORK WITH KYLE WAS FEATURED IN A GROUP SHOW AT MARIN MOCA, HE HAD HIS FIRST SOLO EXHIBITION AT PART 2 GALLERY  IN APRIL AND NEARLY SOLD OUT THE WORK, AND IN MAY HE CURATED HIS FIRST SHOW WHICH INCLUDED HIS AND KYLE’S COLLABORATIVE SCULPTURE ALONGSIDE SITE-SPECIFIC ARTWORKS BY LIAM EVERETT, LAEH GLENN, AND TERESA BAKER. TYLER AND KYLE WILL BE SHOWING EVEN MORE OF THEIR WORK AT BLUNK SPACE  IN SEPTEMBER 2022. 

Find more of Tyler's work:

Tyler's Instagram 
Tyler & Kyle's studio instagram

I Surrender at Pt. 2 Gallery
What Part of the Whale at Pt. 2 Gallery
Gravity Corner at Blunk Space

 

• Mark Ochinero


Friendly Assembly | August 2020
Mark Ochinero is a Bay Area-born illustrator and photographer currently based in San Francisco. His work captures the humor and irony of everyday life and objects: whether he's using a camera, gel pens, crayons, or ceramics, Mark always offers a playful change of perspective.
Find more of Mark's work:
Mark's Instagram
Mark at Legion Projects
• Rachel Kaye




Wavy Blades | September 2020

Rachel Kaye is an artist based in San Francisco, California. Her love of fashion and textiles has informed a meditative study in collage, pattern, and movement where her paintings come to life in vibrant melodies of color and shapes.

A conversation with Rachel from Plunge Rag Vol. 2:

PLUNGE: I remember taking your collage class at Case for Making ages ago. Do you still work in collage at all?

RACHEL: Every now and then. For a long time collage was always this thing for me when I felt I was stuck in painting or drawing. It’s like cooking in a way, it is immediate, instant gratification. I could make these quick loose things and then they would help me. For a while I would make paintings off of them, then they just became this way to keep myself active.

What is your daily practice like?

I’m probably in [the studio] on average 30 hours a week. Then I feel like things ramp up with a show. I used to be a night worker and I’m not so much anymore because I’m just tired from having kids and I want to get a good night’s sleep, but that being said when I have deadlines I’ll come here at night too and get extra hours in. Something that switched in the last couple years is the paintings and drawings clicked together. I feel like they were always two separate bodies of work and now I’ll make a lot of drawings that then I can scale up for paintings, which feels really good. I feel I have a line of process to get to the paintings.

So are you finding that you’re doing more painting than you ever have?

When I had that show at Part 2 [Gallery], I was definitely painting a lot and then Hawaii kind put the brakes on that, which was unfortunate because I had all this momentum.

Is that just because you were limited by your materials?

Yes. I just couldn’t bring canvas, I didn’t have a big enough space, painting is so messy… and just the functionality of making drawings. But I did make bigger drawings though which was cool in the sense of the scale being bumped up.

Do you find that your practice changes when you’re moving around a lot or traveling?

It just always goes back to drawing which is kind of my [default] and I feel like in some ways the drawing’s always stronger because I never stop. I love drawing but it is frustrating as a painter when I do want to push the paintings and I have to stop and go.

Do you think that’s why the paintings and drawing have meshed?

Maybe. I think it’s more when I started working in bigger blocks of color. For 10 years now I’ve been making these colored pencil drawings and they were so heavily patterned in the beginning, and then all the pattern slowly kept getting whittled out, and suddenly now the forms are more important, which makes painting more accessible for me. Painting a heavily patterned painting felt more laborious than gratifying, so I’d make one or two and be done. Now I see endless ideas in the paintings. I guess it took 10 years for the two to click for me.

I’ve noticed a lot of movement and emotion in your work and it often feels very lyrical. There also seems to be some allusion to music in your show titles, like Loop Melody and Song in a Room. Do you listen to music while you work?

I go through phases of listening to a lot of music and then for a while, like during the last election, I listened to a lot of the news and then I completely shut out the news and I’ve been listening to a lot of books. I guess when I look at the pieces as a whole, that’s when I start to think about the rhythm between them and the repetition of shapes and the movement that you see that’s the thread between them.

Can you talk about where some of your shapes and forms come from?

Definitely the environment… like for [Drawings from the Pacific at Sarah Shepard Gallery] I was in Hawaii -- I did all the work there so I was alway thinking about the place. Literally you look out the window and it’s just an incredible landscape, really cinematic. I usually make quick sketches, then when I find something I like, I start to really slow down and play and work out compositions before I get a drawing going. So there it was much more about natural environments, but before I was in Hawaii I would often find shapes in debris, like when I was working in the garden, or my kids cutting up stuff… it was really domestic for lack of a better word. [I was] always home and so that’s how far I saw things, and then [in Hawaii] I would go on a hike and I would see things. I sometimes photograph things but they never turn out how I like and I prefer the memory of remembering something, so I’ll try and capture a shape and then play around with it and it’s a loose interpretation of that memory.

There’s a nice inner-world-versus-outer-world conversation, and then you’re finding these really beautiful moments, studying them, and then working them out in your painting. That’s really lovely. In thinking back on your career as an artist, are there moments that you feel were really pivotal?

The JB Blunk Residency was probably the most pivotal, even though it was simultaneously a really hard time. It’s something that I think a lot about because my work did a major change around that time. When we got there, we’d landed in Inverness [California] from New York and I think it was really pivotal in the practice of just being an artist. We had a stipend, so I wasn’t hustling. Also, I grew up in the suburbs and always lived in the city, so being in a remote place changed me. I never knew how much I would love living tucked away in nature. But I didn’t really make anything big when I was there… major growing pains. Leaving New York coincided with my work doing a 180, so I didn’t know what I was doing, I was trying to make paintings; they weren’t working. And in the end, the last two weeks, I started making these drawings based off of an actual pattern. I made six of them or something and I left with, “I can do something with this”. Basically, those last drawings that I made, I still see as the thread to where I am now.

So it seems like the residency shook you up in a way that allowed you to explore.

Yes. I basically went there and was like, “I’m not making that work, but I don’t know why.” It was really stressful because here I am being told I can work and I don’t know what to do. Also, being there with [Jay] who is always super prolific, he was there and ready to work, he made a boat, he made a bunch of paintings. I would pretty much be in the studio crying, “this is so hard, is it done for me?” Anytime you read anyone’s autobiography, there’s rarely a case where an artist isn’t confronted with those moments. However when you are in it, it’s hard to see how you’ll get past it. 

Totally, and those moments can be really important for the work to progress. Do you ever find yourself stuck now?

I’m lucky I haven’t been stuck for a while. Honestly, strangely, the pandemic was really productive for me and I’m excited for where the work will go next. 

Do you find that you’re most interested in the process of making work or the outcome or something in-between?

I think both. Painting is so much of the experience of painting in itself. There are many moments in making a painting that can feel magical and unexpected. I’m so process driven in my practice that I need those moments to feel excited in the studio. Sometimes I know a painting is done but I’m not even sure I like it. I often ask myself how do I make a painting that has that same immediacy (as the drawings), and also have the medium integrity that I want — it sounds very “beginner”. But isn’t the goal to have that feeling, like a child who makes something with such immediacy and stops with the same fierce intention. The brain’s thought isn’t leading, it’s visceral. 

It seems like keeping a “beginner’s mind” is really important to many artists I’ve talked to for growth, not getting stuck in a certain way of making, and not having an ego about being at some level where you can’t move backwards to explore new things. 

People who are artists can think in a different way. They don’t think in yes-or-no answers. They don’t think something’s a failure because it wasn’t done right. You constantly are failing and that’s how you get on with it. To me being in that mind-state of learning is so valuable because it’s a fucking crazy world! And there’s not just “one way”.

Can you talk about your path to first becoming an artist? Did you go to art school?

Yes, CCA for undergrad. I never went to grad school… maybe one day.

Were you always creative growing up? Was there creativity around you?

I was but I was not a good drawer. My mom was always sewing but she’s by-the-book, and my dad was always fixing things. It was very practical, utilitarian creativity. I was obsessed with dance as a kid. I danced until I was 16 and then when I stopped, I was like, where do I put my energy? I had a really good art teacher in high school. I always liked those classes, but there’s those kids that have that innate gift of perfectly rendering whatever it is they’re looking at and I wanted to do that, so I started taking classes at community college. I’d go to the local art center and do all the figure drawing sessions, I was really formal in my training. I wanted to be able to master the figure and that’s how it all started.

Do you feel like you got what you wanted out of art school?

I think so. Some of my closest friends are people from the CCA, and I think so much of being an artist is finding community of people to support you because it’s such a lonely field.

How did you make the leap into a career as an artist after school?

I just always had a side hustle. It was always like, how can I make good money and not work full-time so I can be working in the studio?

Even then, were you always making art?

Yeah. It would ebb and flow. I’d have really prolific times and then not-so-prolific times. In the last three or four years I’ve just been really head-down and consistently making work. 

Do you ever find it difficult to tell people what you do?

Yes. Something that drives me crazy is people will be like, “How did you get all this work done?” It’s a job. I work. So much about motherhood gets tangled into that too, which if I had a normal job, no one would question.

It’s so interesting because at the same time, being an artist is very glorified somehow.

There was a really good quote which I don’t know verbatim, I think it was something someone said to Picasso or something: be a freak in your studio, and just live your normal life… Which resonates because my life looks conventional in marriage and home life or whatever. But it’s not, because we’re both artists and are working for ourselves and making money… I could look at paintings all day. Painting is like… you start with nothing. It’s a complete illusion of the world. To me nothing is more interesting than making something out of nothing. I’m a painter’s painter in that way. There’s so much magic there and there’s a reason it’s still being made — because it’s endlessly fascinating for the maker. Maybe the work is nothing new in the history of painting and maybe it is, but it’s not about that. Sometimes the most interesting stuff happens just when you’re making the work, it’s not always when it’s a finished thing.

How does making art make you feel?

I mean, it makes me feel like everything. Some days, it’s really good and some days I’m like, “What am I doing?” Sometimes things feel really fast and then things feel a little slow. A lot of times drawing is really calming for me, grounding and centering. Yes sometimes, it feels like everything…

☺

SINCE THIS CONVERSATION RACHEL HAS COMPLETED A MURAL FOR GOOGLE, HER LARGEST TO DATE. IT’S 32 FEET TALL AND WRAPS AROUND THE EXTERIOR OF AN ELEVATOR SHAFT. SHE AND HER FAMILY ARE HEADING BACK TO MOLOKAI FOR THE SUMMER AND SHE’S EXCITED TO MAKE WORK THERE AGAIN.

Find more of Rachel's work:

Rachel's Instagram
Rachel's Website
Rachel in Luxe Magazine

 

• Chelsea Wong



Dans le Sable | October 2020
Chelsea Wong is a painter and muralist whose work reflects a deep love of her San Francisco, California community. Celebrating diversity and color and infusing happiness and joy, Chelsea creates flourishing scenes (both real and imaginary) that share some of life's best moments.
Find more of Chelsea's work:
Chelsea's Instagram
Chelsea's Website
Chelsea on Its Nice That
• Rob Moss Wilson


 



Cumulus Humilis | November 2020

Rob Moss Wilson is an artist based in Martinez, California. His work captures the simplest things that make you feel the best: lying on your back and finding creatures in the clouds, doing cartwheels on grass, swimming in the buff under the warm sun. His words from an interview with It's Nice That ~ "I want people to feel good about being alive".

Find more of Rob's work:

Rob's Instagram
Rob's Website
Rob on It's Nice That

• Kidtofer


To All The Boys I've Loved Before... | December 2022
Christopher Gale, also known as Kidtofer, is an artist and illustrator based in Oakland, California and originally from Bangkok, Thailand. His work in ceramic, paint, and illustration unabashedly celebrates sexuality, color, and pop culture.
 

Left and Right photographs by Macayli Hausmann
An interview with Kidtofer from Plunge Rag Vol. 2:
WE MET HIM DURING SEPTEMBER OF 2021 IN HIS WORKSPACE AT CAMPBELL STREET STUDIOS, A SHARED CERAMICS STUDIO TUCKED INSIDE A BEAUTIFUL BRICK BUILDING IN WEST OAKLAND WHICH HE AND FELLOW ARTIST, NATALIE CASSIDY, OPENED AND CO-OPERATE. IT HAS A BIG ROLL UP DOOR, BRIGHT NATURAL LIGHT, AND IS NOW HOME TO SEVERAL CERAMICISTS. WE FOUND KIDTOFER  SURROUNDED BY NEATLY ORGANIZED RACKS OF PAINTED BISQUE-WARE OBJECTS, LISTENING TO ALEX G, WEARING A CUTE OUTFIT WITH GREEN PANTS MATCHING HIS NAILS AND SINGLE EARRING.
PLUNGE: I am curious about how the pandemic has changed the way you work because you mentioned you left your day job.
KIDTOFER: I quit during the pandemic just because the amount of work at the time was really taking a toll on me mentally. I decided that in order for me to take care of my mental health (due to everything that was going on at the time) I would need to just take a little break from my job. I was hoping to take a few months off from work since I knew that money would be really tight without a salary job. However, once I started getting unemployment, it actually provided me more than enough to be able to supply myself for rent, food, etc. Instead of taking a full break I ended up just heavily working on my art during that period of time and eventually started a ceramic studio with my business partner, Natalie. Because of that, I was able to just not have any other distractions and just put all my effort into my art fully for a year.
Is it the first time you’ve ever done art full time?
Not really. I started doing illustrations freelance back in 2012. I went to school for communication arts, for broadcasting, at Bangkok University, and during our last year we had to do internships. Basically you have to do three months at any company that’s related to what you do and I was at Channel V which is the MTV of Asia. I was writing scripts about music broadcasting and I was responsible for the western music channel.
That sounds fun.
It was fun, actually. And I was like, I can do this, the pay is shit, but this is the only thing I know how to do. And then during that time I was doing drawings -- I’d been doodling my whole life -- and my colleagues would commission me. After I graduated I did that for about six months. I got a lot of money… well a lot of money for Thailand. My sister then encouraged me to move to the states just because the art scene here is way more diverse and there are just many more opportunities here for art and design jobs in general. So I moved and I had four thousand dollars and I thought that would last me at least a year.
 And then you got to the Bay Area...
I was naive at the time (probably still am). I was only 22 when I first moved here. I was a couch boy for like a year. I didn’t pay rent, I was broke, broke, broke and I was like, I’m going to become an artist! And then I realized everybody else is an artist. I just didn’t have any clear goals or directions on what I wanted to do besides doing illustrations. I started applying for jobs. I applied at multiple Bluebottles, didn’t even get an interview. I applied at Whole Foods for, you know, sign art. And I was like, oh, that’s perfect, I can do some drawing. Did not get that job. And then eventually, my last resort was Thai restaurants. I was still doing some illustration work back in Thailand, some freelance stuff. Then I joined a game company and did customer support work and that’s pretty much how I started my design career. They saw that I could do art and were like, Do you want to try doing some UI/UX? And then it just moved from that.
It seems like Instagram has been helpful with getting your artwork out there. How do you feel about social media as a tool to promote yourself?
I think there’s definitely lots of pros and cons about social media. I think what’s great about it is that people get more exposure and are able to have a platform to showcase their work outside of the physical world — like galleries and art shows. however, one of the cons is that your [number] of followers suddenly became this social measurement/quality on how “amazing” this art is and we kinda use the followers and likes to validate what is good art and what is not so good. This is what really bums me out because there is so much good shit out there that deserves so much more love from people. That pretty much sums up about how I feel on a daily basis about Instagram. However, I can’t lie and say I don’t benefit from it because a lot of times I get commissioned or invited to participate in art shows through social media. I didn’t really know a lot of people when I moved here so social media was a big help leading me into the community.
You’ve been producing a lot of work since you’ve opened this new studio, as far as I can tell. Are you enjoying having and running this space?
I do enjoy running the studio with Natalie and having a community here, especially when it’s ceramics. It’s nice to be surrounded by people that have similar interests as you, but also all of us at the studio have totally different styles. It’s great to get inspired from people around you. However, running the space sometimes can be a bit stressful when it comes to managing because I don’t operate well in that type of way. I tend to work better when I’m alone in my own element doing my own thing, I guess.
Bossing your friends around is not fun.
 And potentially you could destroy friendships too, if things go sideways. So when I first started Campbell Street Studios with Natalie, I was a little bit nervous about that because we have a good relationship and I didn’t wanna do anything that would jeopardize it. I wouldn’t do this if it wasn’t with Natalie, honestly. She’s probably the best person in the world, She’s a very smart, kind and such a giving person. If it wasn’t her, I’d be nervous. Also I’ve had weird dynamics with people at a community studio in the past so that part was a bit spooky. However, everybody’s been great here -- that aspect hasn’t been an issue. But sometimes I feel like I’m just here working on my stuff and then I realize later like, oh wait, rent’s due… But that’s a minor part I don’t like.
It’s so great that you’ve created a community here. Your open studio events are so fun too.
 Yeah, I think it’s a good way to have social events to bring people together. In West Oakland we have so many art studios around and so many creative people, but we also have to understand where we are representing, and that this is basically gentrification in a way. So with that, what can we do with this space beyond just having the space to create? Maybe we’ll have a day where people in the neighborhood can come in and the kids could do some hand-building workshops. We also are aware that ceramics is not the most accessible art practice so it would be great to just utilize the space to introduce people in the area to this. We’re still aiming to do that at some point, but because of the safety issues with our current pandemic situation it’s just been tough to arrange things.
How did you make the jump from illustration and digital art to ceramics?
I’ve always been obsessed with claymation, like Celebrity Death Match and Gumby and all that, so as a kid I wanted to make toys. I’m always fascinated by the people who can turn objects into movement. Illustration is great and fun and obviously that’s where I started so I love that, I try adding some shading, adding little highlights here and there, but at the end of the day it’s still on a flat surface. And I think ceramics was that gateway into [not spending] a lot of time on a computer. Yes, I draw everything by hand but I color in Photoshop because it’s the fastest way I can produce work. I have a day job and I don’t have time to paint. I also feel like my painting is not as strong as my drawing line work. This is my way of creating work but I was like, how can I make that into a more 3-D form without doing 3-D animation, without using a computer, spending more time on digital screens? Especially when my day job was doing that for eight hours straight. I started taking classes at Clay by the Bay and then the transition was easy because I already have my style.
You make a lot of functional ceramic pieces like mugs, vases, and candleholders. Do you find that these sell more easily than sculpture?
For sure. This is probably a very techie answer but I do UI/UX and I like problem solving. And I think for my art, yes it’s sculpture, but I want it to be useful. I don’t want it to just be another piece of art. Does the world really need more shit, you know? But if it’s functional, maybe that justifies it a little bit. It’s kind of like light sculpture that is functional. Most people don’t use my mugs because they’re scared… I think people are afraid because it’s “fragile”, but it actually works, ya’ll. Just give it a chance.
How much time you spend on your artwork now?
If I have an order or if a show is coming up or something like that, then I spend eight to ten hours, sometimes twelve a day. Especially with painting ceramics. It takes three coats on each section to make sure that it’s opaque so it’s very time consuming. And depending on the detail… With ceramics, you make it, you let it dry, then you paint it, then you fire it and then come back and then you glaze it. It’s just a whole thing, but that’s why when I make this stuff I make a lot. So when I come to the studio I try to spend at least three to four hours making stuff so that I can feel like when I’m here I’m just constantly producing. And it’s therapeutic. It doesn’t feel like work. Sometimes it does, but most of the time it’s time for me to go inside my head and decide what’s wrong with you, why are you the way you are, and how do we make things better? Let’s sort this out. [Laughs] Like, let’s have a private meeting while being useful, basically.
Are you disciplined about coming to the studio?
Oh, yeah. This is where I have my own space. Even though I’m sharing with other people it never feels crowded because everybody’s so focused. I try to spend a lot of time here because I know I’m being useful, I like making stuff, and I can avoid socializing a little bit and just be with myself. Back when I used to have a job I spent the same amount of time. I would go to work at 8am or whatever, leave at 4pm, I would get to the clay studio at like 5ish, and then I would stay there until 11 or midnight. That is a little bit more fun for me because I know I’m creating stuff purely for passion and not just trying to sell stuff because I had the security of having a day job, whereas now it’s a little bit different.
How do you think your practice will change when you go back to a day job?
I’ll probably be here a little bit less or not as long. But also, I don’t know what it’s going to be like because we’re working from home now. I might not be able to produce as much.
You have so much great work here right now!
It looks like I have a lot but I don’t really sell my stuff that often. I literally just started selling. If I’m not doing craft fairs you’re not going to be able to buy my stuff because… I don’t know why I don’t do that. Maybe it’s just a fear of not being able to sell them. Or sometimes I don’t want to let them go. And I always promise myself to document every piece. But I never do that, it’s sad...
What part of your process makes you the happiest? 
The building part is always the most fun for me because you get to form the shape. I like seeing the skeleton of how it’s going to look. I sketch my stuff with pencils, but I don’t color them, I just sketch some form of shape, some form of pattern that I think would work for each piece but they never really look like my sketches. Sometimes while I’m making stuff I’m like, oh maybe I’ll add this, maybe I’ll do that. So that’s also the fun part. There’s some sort of plan and things to do, but it never looks the way that it was supposed to look.
It sounds like there are a lot of surprises that can happen along the way.
Yeah! And so if that’s my favorite process, my least favorite process is actually painting. I hate color choices. But I feel like it’s justified once everything gets fired and it looks alive. That’s when I’m like, oh okay, this actually is fun. And then you go through the same torturous pattern.
How does art make you feel?
Purposeful. It makes me feel like I have a purpose because this is what I know I can do and what I am confident in and what I can do best. This is what I know that I’m supposed to be doing. It’s not for everybody, obviously. And I don’t know if it’s a common theme for gay people, but I struggle with my identity a lot. For me, it’s just accepting myself. I think my ceramics doesn’t really showcase that, but my illustration gets a little bit gayer. It makes me feel like I have a voice and a purpose. It’s also nice to see when people relate to my stuff or understand what I’m trying to do, or if it makes people laugh, or it might not be their thing but if they can kind of respect or appreciate certain things it’s a little validation. It makes me feel like I’m showing my self and people get to see that.
That’s great. Do you ever find yourself in a creative funk?
 With illustration, yes. Not with ceramics. I feel like if I’m stuck, I can still come in and make mugs. I don’t know what they’re going to look like or what the faces are going to look like, but I have my simple shapes that I do all the time so I feel like I never feel stuck with that. But with illustration sometimes I don’t know what to draw and I don’t even know how I get out of it. I think pressure always helps.
Pressure that you put on yourself?
More like time. I don’t do drawings in my house at all whatsoever, I only do them at coffee shops because the idea that I’m using space that someone else needs to use stresses me out. If I work at a cafe or at another office or whatever, it’s like you feel the pressure that something needs to happen within the time that you are given. And especially with commission work, it’s always sort of like... oh fuck this is due tomorrow, I just start figuring out layouts and it just works.
You were in a few gallery shows this year -- is that something you want to do more of?
Yeah. Gallery work has always been a dream for me. I got the opportunity to do Hashimoto, which is kind of funny because it was one of the first galleries that I visited when I moved here. There’s so many cool galleries that are amazing and that I love, but for some reason Hashimoto always stood out to me because the artists they carry in that space have always been kind of similar to me so it had always been a goal. And the other one was Big Gay Art Show, which I worked on with Gem Studio in West Oakland. It was just me being able to do a gay show… it was an excuse to have fun, do shit, and bring in my friends. The content [was] all about how we express our identity. For now my main focus is to push ceramics as my gallery work.
Do you have anything coming up?
My goal is to get my website ready and finally launch it and sell my shit. From there I would like to figure out what my next step is because once I have goals, I feel the high and I keep myself busy, then the moment when I’m actually not doing anything I get kind of depressed. But I somehow manage to find things if they’re not created for me. For example, like with Big Gay Art Show, if people don’t want to put my shit in a gallery, why don’t I just make it on my own and talk to people that have space, you know? We’re planning on doing Big Gay Art Show round two... I definitely want to bring in more artists and I want to take submissions. That’s one thing that’s happening!
KIDTOFER HAS SINCE SHOWN HIS WORK AT SOFT TIMES GALLERY AND WAS IN ANOTHER SHOW AT HASHIMOTO CONTEMPORARY IN SAN FRANCISCO. HE HAS A NEW FULL-TIME JOB BUT IS STILL BUSY MAKING HIS ARTWORK AND IS THRIVING UNDER THE PRESSURE OF MORE TIME CONSTRAINTS. HE’S THINKING ABOUT MOVING TO NEW YORK SOON AND IS EXCITED TO SEE WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR CAMPBELL STREET STUDIOS. ☺
Find more of Kidtofer's work:
Wetboi | December 2020
Kidtofer's Instagram
Kidtofer in Wired
• Lena Gustafson


Open Water | February 2021
Lena Gustafson is an artist from San Francisco, CA who lives and works in the East Bay. Between her multi-disciplinary art practice and Night Diver, the collaborative press she runs with her partner, Lena keeps pumping out incredible work that touches on transformation, the body, the environment, and connects herself to her community.
Find more of Lena's work:
Lena's Instagram
Lena's Website
Night Diver Press 
• Charlotte Beavers

 
Poppies | March 2021 & Poppies 2 | August 2022 
Charlotte Beavers is a California artist currently based on a sailboat floating along the central coast. Her delicate and delightful watercolor paintings celebrate the magical landscapes found all across her home state.
Find more of Charlotte's work:
Charlotte's instagram 
Charlotte's website 
Charlotte on If You Were Here Now
• Oliver Hawk Holden


Shrimp Boy | April 2021
Oliver Hawk Holden grew up in a small coastal town in Maine before moving to San Francisco and giving it a go in the arts. He makes humorous, often kinetic sculpture, sculptural paintings, and runs a small art handling company called Expert Art Workers.
Find more of Oliver's work:
Oliver's Website
Oliver's Instagram
Expert Art Workers
• Maria Paz


My Angels Are All Of You | May 2021
Paz, born in Quilpue, Chile, is a self-taught sculptor based in Oakland, California. They paint gripping visions of their past on large ceramic vessels, using bright colors to tell intricate stories of their history, ancestry, and identity.
Find more of Maria's work:
Maria's website
Maria's Instagram
Maria's interview with YBCA
• Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo


Center Black Rest | June 2021
In support of Headlands Center for the Arts
Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo is an artist, activist, educator, storyteller & curator who lives and works between Ohlone Land [Oakland, CA] and Powhatan Land [Richmond,VA]. Lukaza creates lyrical mixed-media artworks that weave craft, text, and bright color to speak about identity, activism, and community. Their diligent, immersive work is a call to action, reminding us all that positive change and a brighter future is possible through ongoing mutual support and organization.
Find more of Lukaza's work:
Lukaza's website
Lukaza's Instagram
Lukaza's interview on Variable West
• Momo Gordon


Chair Towel | June 2021 
Momo Gordon is a self-taught artist born in Hessen, Germany and now based in Portland, Oregon, USA. Momo is focused on the emotional landscape; Working with graphite and handmade paper, their work explores sentient spaces, hostile architecture, and anthropized objects. In sequential works or standalone pieces, characters often have four walls.
Find more of Momo's work:
Momo's Instagram
Momo's website
Momo's interview with Post-Comics
Momo in So Young Magazine
• Wardell McNeal


Moon Stories | August 2021
Wardell McNeal is a painter from San Diego who is currently making work in Oakland, California. His background in industrial design informs an introspective exploration of the emotional landscape in sensual color and wandering depths.
Find more of Wardell's work:
Wardell's Instagram
Wardell's interview with Pt. 2 Gallery
• Yulia Zinshtein


1-800-CALL-ME | August 2021 
Yulia Zinshtein is a multidisciplinary artist based in Los Angeles who was raised between Moscow and Philadelphia. Through her paintings, photography, and illustrations she playfully explores themes like the beauty of longing, human connection and nostalgia.
Find more of Yulia's work:
Yulia's Instagram
Yulia's Website
• Solange Roberdeau


Moonglade | October 2021
Solange Roberdeau is an artist and educator based in Elk, California. Her work focuses on her relationship to materiality and process; a maker deeply connected to the present moment and her practice.
Find more of Solange's work:
Solange's Website 
Solange's Instagram 
Solange at Municipal Bonds
• Daisy Sheff & Karen Barbour


Blinky Dress | November 2021
Karen Barbour and Daisy May Sheff are a mother and daughter pair based in Inverness, California. Both are exquisite, prolific painters whose work dips into the subconscious and summons magical narratives overflowing with wild, fantastical color. Twisted folky fairytales swirl and swell, landscapes appear and disappear, characters spin within scenes that are at once comical and dark. Although they show work separately it is clear Daisy and Karen have influenced each other’s work immensely, making their towel collaboration extra sweet.
Find more of Karen and Daisy's work:
Karen's Instagram
Karen's website
Daisy's Instagram
Daisy at White Columns
• Craig Calderwood


Butterfly Sprain | December 2021
Often using affordable craft materials and found textiles, Craig Calderwood creates thoughtful and wildly intricate, vibrantly colored illustrations that offer a glimpse into their private world. Their artworks incorporate a personal language of signs, symbols, and patterns that are heavily researched and repurposed to narrate visual expressions of "desire, biodiversity, and otherness". Craig is based in San Francisco, California.
Find more of Craig's work:
Craig's Instagram
Craig's website
Craig at George Adams Gallery
• Tate Kim


Alien Vs. Predator | February 2021
Tate Kim is a mysto artist from San Diego, California, and our in-house graphic specialist. He’s one of the most authentic people ever, a curious and prolific drawing maker who’s extra talented on just about every level and makes it all look easy ~ surfing, skating, making movies, drawing, existing. He’s creative and humble and sweet. The world is a much better and stranger place with Tate in it.
Find more of Tate's work:
Picnic & Bugs Tees and hoodies ~ October 2022
Mermaid Caps ~ May 2022
Swimmers Tee ~ February 2021
• Aaron Elvis Jupin


Sticky Everywhere |April 2022
Aaron Elvis Jupin is a painting and drawing maker based in Los Angeles, California. His work grapples with nostalgia, memory, and change; his subversion of symbols drawn from American suburbia and popular culture creates moments that are at once silly, uncanny, and sometimes too familiar. 
Find more of Aaron's work:
Aaron's Website 
Aaron's Instagram 
Layman's Terms, Tongue Tied at Moskowitz Bayse
• Molly Bounds


Body Heat | May 2022
Molly Bounds is a painter and printmaker currently living in Los Angeles. Born in Texas and raised in Colorado, she works to communicate the fault in the understanding of human agency. Torn between an aggravated still and a sequence of motion, subjects appear calm but unsettling, caught between frames as their states of being are exaggerated through posture and profile. In less than uncanny portraits, she instead dwells on the likeness of indecision, wavering through urgency, doubt, and complete ambivalence. Forcing viewers into spectating roles, she poses woulda-shoulda-couldas in windows and doorways leading to a purgatory of her design, stuck in an elongated moment where someone needs to make a decision. 
Find more of Molly's work:
Molly's Instagram 
Molly on PLATFORM
Molly in Juxtapoz

• Lucy Stark


Frutti di Mare | July 2022
& The Reboot | January 2023
Lucy Stark is a painter and printmaker living in Oakland, CA. In her art practice, she documents food and dishes with personal significance as a way to capture and celebrate the euphoric yet fleeting moment right before a meal commences.
From Lucy on her design for our first-ever picnic blanket: “Frutti di Mare translates to 'fruit of the sea' (or seafood). This picnic blanket is inspired by the ocean’s bounty and the experience of dining al fresco with friends. The dishes in Frutti di Mare are based on a picnic I had in Tomales Bay where some friends and I enjoyed fruits, the sea, and plenty of fruits of the sea. For me, the best time at the beach is after a salty swim when the snacks come out. With this blanket, even after the last sardine has been eaten, the picnic never has to end. The oysters will stay chilled, the baguette won’t go stale, and you can pretend you brought more than a bag of chips to the beach."

Lucy was the perfect artist to bring a picnic blanket to life with her bright colors and delicate details that recall those nostalgic feelings of friends, family, tradition, and decadence. Since our first collaboration, Lucy has shown her work at MRKTGLLRY and Mini Mart galleries in San Francsico and continues to build her art practice. She is definitely one to watch. 
 
Find more of Lucy's work:
Lucy's Instagram 
Lucy's Website
• Natalie Bessell




Goat to the Stars | September 2022

Natalie Bessell an artist from La Jolla, California who is currently based in a tiny Australian town called Saint Andrews Beach in the state of Victoria. In her work she uses paint, paper, wood and clay to illustrate our human relationship to the plant and animal kingdom.

Find more of Natalie's work:

Natalie's website 
Natalie's instagram

• Sanaa Khan




Supreme Sunbather | October 2022

Sanaa Scherezade Khan grew up in the South Bay Area. Her favorite mediums are painting, drawing and printmaking. Sanaa helps run Max’s Garage Press, a community print shop in Berkeley that offers affordable access to a wide range of equipment for traditional fine art printmaking, risograph printing, and zine-making. She is also 1/3rd of Tiny Splendor, an independent press that collaborates with artists around the world (and us!) to share a love for putting ink on paper.

Sanaa is an incredibly talented artist whose fantastical, often humorous drawings of animals, humans, combinations of the two, and so much more come to life in expertly  rendered detail. 

Find more of Sanaa's work:

Sanaa's instagram
Sanaa's website
Tiny Splendor press
Max's Garage Press

• Elana Cooper




Flower Power | November 2022 

Artist Elana Cooper is primarily known for her striking, large-scale floral silhouettes, though animals are also a common subject of her work. Cooper paints in bold strokes, the background in one color and the subject in a contrasting color, giving her representational work an abstract quality. Drawing from a journal of flowers, Cooper has created her modern floral silhouettes with ink, watercolor, acrylic and even as 3-D wood cutout sculptures. We are thrilled to have turned four of her original Flower paintings into an exclusive, limited-edition artwork in terrycloth. 

Cooper began working in Creativity Explored's studio in 2013 and says, “I never made art before coming here. I didn't know I had the skills for it!” Cooper's popular floral silhouettes have been licensed by Open Editions and commissioned as large-scale public murals by State Bird Provisions. Her iconic flower designs were re-imagined in large-scale for Of Here From There | De Aquí Desde Allá, an interactive digital installation created in partnership with Ana Teresa Fernández in 2020.





Animations by Elana Cooper courtesy of Creativity Explored.



Creativity Explored is a studio-based collective in San Francisco that partners with developmentally disabled artists to celebrate and nurture the creative potential in all of us.

"Creativity Explored serves 130 artists and has facilitated the careers of hundreds of artists. Creativity Explored artists have seen their work exhibited in museums, galleries, and art fairs in over 14 countries and have earned over $2 million from their art.

Their life-changing programs continue to open doors of inclusion to center the personhood and creative vision of people with developmental disabilities. Most importantly, Creativity Explored is a source of community, empowerment and dignity." (Creativity Explored website)

Donate to Creativity Explored’s hybrid programming today. Your support directly impacts the well-being of C.E. artists and provides the resources they need to empower their artistic community.



Q&A with Elana Cooper ~ November 2022

What made you “take the plunge” into an art career/creative life?
I like flowers a lot.  I first drew animals and now focus on flowers. When I came to C.E. I began making artwork.

What do you love about Creativity Explored? 
It’s fun... I like doing flowers... I’m getting my butt up... Flowers, it’s my favorite thing to do... Painting and drawing animals, first.

You're known for your famous black ink flowers and designs. What is the inspiration for your flower paintings and drawings?
It's fast to do... I look at them on my phone, the flowers. I have a flower A-Z list – Flowers from A-Z website... It’s fun. I look at drawings of flowers in my book or on my phone. The shape attracts me.

Do you like to garden or are there any gardens you like to visit in San Francisco?
No garden at home. I like the smell of flowers.

What are your favorite flowers?
All of them.



Favorite color?
Purple

Do you have a favorite musician or album?
I like disco, Dirty Dancing soundtrack, Michael Jackson, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande 
Click here to find a compilation of Elana's favorites on our Spotify :)

What are you working on now and what’s next?
More flowers.  Working on another flower drawing.  

Anything else you'd like to share?
I draw large flowers for a change of pace… I call some of the larger pieces “Crying Flower” because it has drips going down.



"Since starting at Creativity Explored in 2013, making art has been a way for me to translate and process the way I see the world. When I first started working at the studio, most artists came in 5 days a week. There was so much lively energy in this space, I loved having that community as a regular part of my days. I grew so much as an artist from having the opportunity to get instruction and practice every day in the studio. 

When C.E. studios switched to virtual programming during the pandemic, it was a difficult transition for me to make. In a lot of ways, it felt like I was on a long-term vacation; it became harder for me to focus and find motivation, and I missed being a part of the C.E. community. However, after some time, I began to embrace the community-driven model of our virtual classes with C.E. Teaching Artists. Now, in my own artistic exploration, digital art has become one of my favorite mediums.

As many of you probably know, my signature art pieces are floral silhouettes, made from black ink and watercolor on painting paper. I love creating my silhouettes and have an entire reference document of flowers that I choose from each day. Oftentimes, I make flowers that express a lot of emotion, flowers that are ‘crying’, or flowers that are in love. It can be a way to represent myself and bring objects to life.

Digital art has expanded my ability to bring my craft to life. Through ProCreate and digital animation classes, I’m able to turn my drawings into moving pictures. My digital art process begins similarly to my physical process. I start with a base drawing of whatever I can imagine, then, with the help of Teaching Artists Lacey Johnson and Enrique Quintero, I’m able to turn my drawings into adaptable pieces of digital art and animation.

One of my more recent projects is a digital drawing of an ice cream shop, in honor of my dad. My dad loved ice cream, and since his passing, I have been finding ways to reconnect with his memory. When the piece is finished, I plan to draw my dad into the scene eating his favorite snack. 

During one-on-one mentorship sessions with Lacey, I’ve really been able to learn and grow as an artist. It's so rewarding to find a new way to express myself in the digital art world. With hybrid programming, I’m able to work on the same art projects at home or in the studio, which offers me more space for inspiration, instruction, and growth." (Elana Cooper and Creativity Explored)

☺



Find more about Elana: 

Elana Cooper's profile on Creativity Explored 
Shop Elana's available artwork 
Elana on Artsy 


• Annie Duncan


SWIM ZONE & DAISY CHAIN | DECEMBER 2022
Annie Duncan’s work draws from personal narrative and examines the objects, patterns, colors, and people that compose her lived experience. The world conveyed in her paintings and sculptures oscillates between dream and reality, with one foot in each. She explores themes like intimacy and evolving notions of femininity, lingering on the subjects that accumulate to form an archive of emotive, everyday moments.
Annie is a painter and sculptor from San Francisco, where the light and colors of the landscape have always inspired her. She has worked as a teaching artist in residence at The Oxbow School, printmaking teacher at The Putney School Summer Arts in Putney, Vermont, and an emerging fellow at Gallery Route One in Point Reyes Station, CA. She received a BA from Vassar College in 2019, with a major in Urban Studies and a minor in Studio Art. She is currently pursuing an MFA at the California College of the Arts.
Find more of Annie's work:
ANNIE'S INSTAGRAM
ANNIE'S WEBSITE
ANNIE AT GALLERY ROUTE ONE
• Gabriel Kasor



Plunge Man | February 2023

Gabriel Kasor is a prolific artist making paintings in San Francisco, California. Originally from San Diego, Gabriel found his way to the Bay Area and has been forging his path to a promising career in the arts. Using bold gestures and a variety of colorful mediums -- paint, oil sticks, pastels, etc -- Gabriel creates charming scenes that feel like pages torn from a storybook or fragments of a vibrant dream. His confident, fearless expression is textural, layered and often  informed by historical reference... The places and faces are familiar with a touch of magic and the uncanny.

Find more of Gabriel's work here:

Gabe's instagram
An interview with Gabe in Parcel Magazine
Gabe on Artsy

• Rainen Knecht



The Wet Kiss | February 2023

Rainen Knecht studied at the San Francisco Art Institute, graduating with a BFA in Painting in 2006. Knecht’s exhibition history includes solo and two-person exhibitions at Fourteen30 Contemporary (Portland, OR), SITUATIONS (New York, NY), and CAPITAL (San Francisco, CA) as well as group exhibitions at Various Small Fires (Los Angles, CA), Fisher Parrish (Brooklyn, NY), Stems Gallery (Brussels, BE), Royal Nonesuch Gallery (Oakland, CA), Either Way (Los Angeles, CA) and PMOMA (Portland, OR). Knecht is currently based in Portland, Oregon.

We love Rainen's colorful, magical, extraordinary feminine figures ~ they dance and contort inside and outside their frames while wildly gesticulating themes of motherhood, the self, and the heavy weight of emotion. We were thrilled to create Plunge's first knitted blanket with Rainen's Wet Kiss painting! 

Find more of Rainen's work here:

Rainen's website
Rainen's Instagram
Rainen on Platform

• June Gutman


Pilgrimage | March 2023

We love June Gutman's prolific drawings that feel like pages torn from a modern illuminated manuscript. Using her own elaborate symbolism and iconography, June uses her artwork to retell her lived experience navigating the psychiatric system and the search for her self in the process. 

 



June on her process and experience: "I am a Jewish woman and self-taught artist born and raised in Montreal, Canada. I am fixated on producing tangible evidence of my experience of reality. My acute awareness of my own existence has been present throughout my life; I have remained in awe of and shocked by my own consciousness since childhood. 
At an early age, my sensitivity to life resulted in a quick admittance to the psychiatric world and I spent my formative years as a psychiatric patient. I am now in the process of carefully ridding my system of the medication I took for most of my life, trying to free myself from the confinement of diagnosis and re-learning who I am without the medicalized opinions of the mental health industry."




"While I fight to withdraw from medication I took since childhood, I am presented with many seemingly unmanageable symptoms, one of which I name 'The Terror'. Much of my art is in response to this nightmarish state; I am desperate for relief and I ache for an accurate documentation of this baffling condition. Beyond terror, I live with many other experiences that dodge words; many bizarre, borderline-psychedelic and sometimes mystical moments that fall into the category of 'Unreality'.
My psyche is rearranging itself as I suffer and heal from years of adhering to the 'mentally-ill' narrative, being over-medicated and only knowing darkness; my art is an attempt at detailing this life in images. Simultaneously, my art is a comment on the opaqueness, the privacy, the secrecy and the hidden nature of the individual mind.
My attempt to educate an audience on psychiatric-harm (and safe tapering methods) is very important to me. I am far from alone in my experience as a psychiatric-survivor and through my art, I am also fighting for those whose lives have been stolen by psychiatry."


Find more of June's work here:
June's Instagram
• Jessica Thornton Murphy

Nude Beach | July 2020
Jessica Thornton Murphy is based in San Francisco, California. She started Plunge in May 2020 as a way to celebrate the work of the many talented rising artists in her community and beyond. 
Find more of Jess's work:
Jess's Website
Jess's Instagram
Hand Towel ~ September 2021
Butt Stuff ~ January 2022

PARTNERSHIPS

• Headlands Center for the Arts
• Creativity Explored
• JB Blunk Estate
• Heath Ceramics
• Carleen

COLLABORATORS

• Natalie Vall-Freed
• Sophie Templin
• Tom Gilpatrick
• Penelope Anstruther
• Macayli Hausmann
• Sean Curtice
• Rachel Turner
• Tiny Splendor
• Forthrite Printing
• Cass Cleave
• Jet Caputo
• Withitgirls
• Poppy Press
• Janie Korn
• Interzone Studio
• Jessie Turner
• Sadie Creative
• Sarah Sprints
• Shaine Drake