Studio Visit | Jessica Smolinski

Studio view, August 2021. Photo courtesy of the artist.

In the far corner of Jessica Smolinski’s Westville studio, three massive paper works were displayed together. Two hung on adjacent walls, while the third one — not yet assembled — rested on the floor, waiting to be sewn together. Across the room, in the opposite corner of the studio were works by her husband, artist Joseph Smolinski, while pieces made by their two children — the bright and playful ephemera of childhood — were scattered throughout the converted garage studio that the family shares.

In Smolinski’s star-shaped works, dozens of smaller diamonds interlock to form the many points of the central shape. The composition is the same in each of the works, and it recalls the Lone Star quilt pattern, one of the oldest and most recognizable quilt designs. The pattern is known by many different names throughout Native American and early American histories, and the form also engenders different meanings for various groups.

The quilt references are unmistakable in Smolinski’s Perennial Star series, but a key material difference sets her work apart from the traditional craft. For several years, Smolinski’s works have been fabricated from sewn paper, specifically archival prints of the artist’s photographs. She reprints and repeats pieces of the same image within her compositions. The designs are consistent, but the imagery within each one is distinct. With various parts of flowers, glimmers of the blue sky, and scenes from the beach reappearing in concentric bands around the patterns, the works mimic a kaleidoscope. They become a meditation on the process of looking and the disjointed way we perceive and remember mundane moments.

“All of the images are from my daily life,” explained Smolinski, who has gone on long walks for as long as she has been a dog owner. “When you walk through a neighborhood repeatedly, you start to understand very subtle changes: landscaping alterations, balloons stuck in trees, behaviors of neighbors. I always know when a house is about to go on the market,” she said. First, a dumpster shows up, and soon, there’s a for sale sign planted in the yard, she described.

Smolinski arrived at her current practice of sewing photographs together over many years, and her current works represent a collage of her interests. Sewing, gardening, and sculpture merge in these large-scale works, which sometimes span seven feet.

Smolinski worked on the three aforementioned star-shaped works, alongside several smaller pieces based on other quilt blocks, while she was at the Wassaic Project during an artist residency with her family last summer. These pieces are also included in her current two-person exhibition with her partner Joseph. A Bird in Hand at Jennifer Terzian Gallery is the artist couple’s first joint exhibition, on view at the Litchfield space through October 16.

Installation view of *A Bird in Hand*, Jennifer Terzian Gallery. October 2021.

Growing up in the Oyster Bay area of Long Island, Smolinski was not often around professional artists, but she believes that her trajectory as an artist stems from the influence of two relatives. Her paternal grandmother was a quilter and an illustrator, though Smolinski was quick to add, “She would never have called herself an artist.” Still, several quilts made by her grandmother are among her most cherished possessions.

On the other side of the family, Smolinski’s Great Aunt Edith sent her copies of Art News magazine. The unfortunate timing of a trip abroad caused Edith to miss the polio vaccine, and she became a quadriplegic after contracting the disease. “From what I can gather, I think her illness sparked her creative side,” Smolinski explained. As an adult, Edith lived in a state hospital on Roosevelt Island and learned to paint and draw by using a brush in her mouth. Edith’s letters and the magazines she sent were Smolinski’s first foray into contemporary art.

Ink drawing by Edith Houghton, 1970s. Photo courtesy of the artist.

After high school, Smolinski attended SUNY Cortland, the same school her father had attended. She didn’t know she was going to study art, but she soon fell in love with sculpture. “By my second semester, I was welding and bronze casting,” she remembered. “It was very formal training, and I really appreciated that because it gave me a very solid foundation.”

After college, she worked as a studio assistant for one of her professors, Allen Mooney. Smolinski built up her portfolio during this time and was accepted into the graduate program at the University of Connecticut. Here, she met her partner, Joseph, who was also a student.

“Part of my motivation to go to grad school was to understand how to create installations,” Smolinski said. Working in the metal shop was dirty, and after a while, Smolinski switched to working with fabric, which felt like a more expansive and versatile material.

Her practice as an artist continued to evolve over the next several years, which brought big changes. The Smolinskis married, moved to New Haven, and had two children.

These days, Smolinski works as the Documentation Photographer at the Yale University Art Gallery. She takes photos of all the exhibitions, events, and lectures that occur within the museum. “I work with a camera every day, and that’s been a great exercise in how to see,” she said. Smolinski has always loved photography and took classes in high school. She also dabbled with some experimental — “embarrassing” — photography in graduate school, but it did not become a more central part of her work until a few years ago.

Photography re-entered her practice as an artist partially out of practical concerns. The Smolinskis first shared studio was a tiny space. There was not enough room to work on larger sculptures, but photography could easily be stored. And as a new mother, Smolinski was attracted to the immediacy of photography, which could be easily integrated into her daily routines.

Around this time, some of the more moribund imagery in Smolinski’s works began to appear. Smolinski began documenting the rotting pumpkins she found each fall around her New Haven. In her recent works, dead birds are also a common occurrence. Sometimes these subjects initially read as indistinguishable masses of color and texture, but as a viewer spends more time with Smolinski’s work, the imagery starts to evoke a wider range of feelings, everything in between celebratory and mourning.

Perennial Star (Blue), detail 2021 Archival inkjet prints, thread. 7' by 7'. Photo courtesy of the artist. — *Perennial Star (Blue)*, detail 2021 Archival inkjet prints, thread. 7' by 7'. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Smolinski shared that becoming a parent and losing one of her own made her much more aware of the natural cycles of life. Her mother passed away four years ago. Her death coincided with a period of artistic development for Smolinski when she first began sewing her photographs together.

“Culturally, we focus so much on life,” she said, “but death is an undeniable part of all our lives.” Her studio practice reflects these life cycles as well as the ebbs and flows of being a working mother and an artist. “I have these moments when I question why I do this,” she said, “but I remember that it’s important for [my] kids to see that I have something I love, something more than my job.”