Category: Being an artist

Watercolor Map Drawings

For the last few months I’ve been experimenting with making watercolor maps of my runs, walks, and bike rides. I keep track of these activities using a GPS, upload the data to Strava (a sort of social network for athletes), and then use the Strava-generated map as the reference for these drawings.

When I started making these, I was including a lot of the data, but after a while I realized that the map part was the most interesting. So I’ve focused on making these smaller – more minimal – drawings since then.

Below you can see the drawings in their current incarnation (the six drawings on the top left) and in their previous forms. The current drawings are 5×7 inches and are watercolor, graphite, colored pencil, ink, and acrylic.

 

 

Last Chance to See “Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow” Exhibit

I spent a few days last week camping at the Davidson River in Pisgah National Forest, riding bikes, hiking, and soaking in the river with old and new friends. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to meet there again next year at the same time.

And on the studio side of things… if you haven’t had a chance to see my work at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, there’s another week left to catch the exhibit “Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow.”

The show features drawings, collages, textiles, installation, and video projects on themes of changing ecology.

The last day of the show is Saturday July 12th. The Davis Gallery is open M-F 9am – 7pm and Saturday 9am – 4pm.  Sawtooth will be closed this Friday July 4th and Saturday July 5th for the holiday. 

Image Credits: Sawtooth School of Visual Art

Textile Installation and Collages
Jessica Singerman – A NC Landscape drawn and undrawn 9 times – video project

Birthdays and Scary Projects

I turned 45 last Saturday and spent the week with my family at Oak Island, NC. Each day I indulged in multiple trips to the beach to run or walk or swim or just jump over waves. I read a lot and caught some of Roland-Garros. It was pretty great!

In the studio I’ve been working on a painting commission of skiers and I think it’s done. I’m starting an intimidating weaving project next, and I’ll share when things are under way and I have images to show.

If you haven’t had a chance to check out my show at the Sawtooth School, it’s up until July 12th. You’ll find drawings, collages, textiles, installation, and video on themes of changing ecology.

Jessica Singerman Collages at Sawtooth School Exhibit
Summer has begun! This is “Cold Water.” It’s 30×40 inches oil on canvas and available here.

On the Let’s Talk Art with Brooke Podcast

Last October 2024, Brooke Musterman (of the Let’s Talk Art with Brooke podcast) and I had an interesting conversation, and now you can listen to it on her website here or on Apple podcasts here.

Among other things, we talked about whether art school is necessary or not, how to make work about challenging subjects, and my current show at the Sawtooth School in Winston-Salem, NC.

Making one of the imaginary topography drawings in my current show

“Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow” exhibit visit

This is a glimpse of the work in my show “Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow” currently up at Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, NC.

The exhibit features video, collage, drawing, textiles, and installation works that explore our relationship to the ephemeral and ever-shifting natural world.

Spurred by climate change and ongoing geopolitical concerns, with this work I’m exploring distinctions of permanence and impermanence, as well as the delicate balance between chaos and order.

The show is up until July 2025 at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art in Winston-Salem, NC.

Thank you

Thanks to everyone who made it out to the opening reception for my show “Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow” and a big thank you to the entire Sawtooth School for Visual Art team for believing in me and for all the work they put into helping bring this exhibit to life. I’m grateful.
I was delighted to see people excited to take a paper crane and children using them as shadow puppets with my video projections – and gleefully playing on my fabric boulders. The exhibit features 2 large series of works on paper, which I displayed unframed for the first time. That kind of vulnerability was appropriate for the show, and I was happy to be able to share less precious – and touchable! – work in contrast to these.
What’s next? I’m not sure yet, but we have such a rich history of textiles in NC…. I’m dreaming of more and bigger reclaimed fabric boulders – again made in community – and shown in an unused textile factory… If anyone knows of such a place, please let me know!
 

Making Boulders!

The installation of my exhibit Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow continued this week at the Sawtooth School of Visual Art. We invited community volunteers to help me make boulders, large bundles of textiles that are compressed and tied together. I started making these a couple of years ago while experimenting with reclaimed fabric at Penland School of Craft, and wanted to include more and bigger ones in this show. They sit heavy on the floor in my sculpture work Boulder field.

I’m particularly pleased with this boulder-making experience because last summer I decided I wanted to make more work collaboratively and with community. The two events that the Sawtooth School held brought in people who were genuinely curious about the process, and who were happy to put in the physical effort needed to tightly bundle all of these materials. It was a real pleasure to make these as a group.

Thank you to all the volunteers who came out to help and to our community partners who generously donated the large quantities of scrap fabric needed to make these!

The opening reception is April 17th 6-8pm in the Davis Gallery at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art.

Jessica Singerman and volunteer Ann Rowe-Davis working on a textile boulder
Volunteers Russ Dubois, Rebecca Silberman, and Betsy Messick making textile boulders
Artist Jessica Singerman and volunteers Katie Barber, Toni Bryja, and Nicole Cochran working together to make a textile boulder
Tensioning and tying down all the fabric
All hands on deck!
Artist Jessica Singerman and volunteers Katie Barber, Toni Bryja, and Nicole Cochran working together to make a textile boulder
Jessica Singerman and her niece Alex Singerman Driggs celebrating Alex’s boulder-making prowess

Making Clouds and Suspending Hankies

The installation of my upcoming exhibit Cloud Girl Accidentally Eats Rainbow started this week. The first two days were focused on installing Children of the Clouds, the suspended textile work featuring 200 individually dyed handkerchiefs. You can read more about this project here and here.

If you’re interested in behind the scenes, here are some photos documenting the process. I roughly calculated that I went up and down that ladder 500 times in the 8 hours of work to tie and hang all of the hankies. Thankfully I had two assistants doing all of the thread measuring and tying knots to tiny safety pins.

Installation continues this week and next for the rest of the work in the show.

The opening reception is April 17th 6-8pm in the Davis Gallery at the Sawtooth School for Visual Art.

up in the clouds
almost done!
Artist Assistants Finley Billstone and Lex Piper
200 hankies ready to be installed
200 hankies waiting for their place
my concept drawing for the installation – the plan for the whole exhibit is on the right

 

 

 

New Painting Acquisitions

I’m happy to share that Linea South End luxury apartments has acquired four of my paintings (below) for their thoughtfully curated project in Charlotte, NC. Thanks to their team and to Sugarlift for the collaboration.

Artistic Lineage

After last week’s “snowmageddon,” today’s downright balmy weather feels like a gift. Sitting on my back porch in the warm sun, I’m looking at the shapes between the trees and the sky and the ground.

I made a series of paintings based on drawings of chairs and a table and trees I drew on this back porch when I was imagining creating spaces for conversation… I was inspired by a painting of a chair that Richard Diebenkorn made years ago, and he in turn was inspired by an Henri Matisse painting. This makes them my art grandpas if you will. I like thinking of the line of artists who inspire younger artists – this artistic lineage is reassuring in a way.

Scroll down to see one of the paintings from this series, and then the Diebenkorn and Matisse works below it.

Petals fall in the pond 2, oil on panel, 14×11 inches
Richard Diebenkorn, Interior with Doorway, 1962, oil on on canvas, 70 3/8 x 59 1/2 in
Henri Matisse, View of Notre Dame, 1914, oil on canvas
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