Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeanne Jaffe.
Hi Jeanne, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born in Butler, Pennsylvania, a small steel mill town, where I spent much of my childhood exploring the woods and shores of a nearby lake. My artistic path started by leaving high school early to study archaeology in Israel. This choice was pivotal in shaping how I view the world, art, and its significance. Immersed in the archaeological sites and ancient histories, I developed a fascination with the layers of human experience embedded in physical remains, material culture, and the psyche, I also developed an appreciation for the ways physical objects carry history, memory, and symbolism.
After two years in Israel, I returned to the United States to study art, earning a BFA from Tyler School of Art followed by an MFA from Alfred University in ceramics. Upon graduation I began teaching at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia where I also chaired the Fine Arts Department. Helping students find what they cared about and what gave their life meaning through developing their artistic practice was deeply satisfying to me. Teaching also enabled me to keep learning and I became interested in animation and storytelling.
During this time, I also started Teaching sculpture in China at the Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts which was a transformative experience. Working with students on installations rooted in Chinese mythology expanded my understanding of cultural narratives and their contemporary relevance
Throughout my teaching career, I widely exhibited my artwork and supplemented my income through grants such as the Gotlieb foundation grant, the PA council on the Arts Grants, The Nea and many others.
In 2017 I moved to Florida and have been stimulated by the openness and diversity of the art community in Miami where I have a studio at Collective 62. During my time in Miami, I have had open time to develop new work and since I have been here have been most productive. Since being here I have completed a residency at Deering Estate, shown throughout Miami, have had a number of solo exhibitions, one at Spinello Projects, in mami, at L’space gallery in NYC and an upcoming exhibition at Dot Fifty-one gallery in Miami.
My work continues to explore lived experience transformed through materiality: a continual process of forming, breaking down, and reassembling stories, memories, and identities in search of significance and meaning. My sculptural, installation, and animation work often examines the ways individuals construct meaning from fragmented memories, emotions, social encounters, and cultural conditioning.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There have been many struggles along the way, both economic and psychological. A major struggle has been earning a living and still having time to make art. For me teaching at a university was a perfect solution in that I enjoyed helping others and constantly learning, which teaching requires. The University position gave me enough time off during summers to develop my work and continue growing.
Art also demands constantly challenging yourself, which at times is exhausting and a bit discouraging as well as exhilarating. so both economic and psychic pressures have been part of the challenges in being an artist.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a multidisciplinary artist best known for my work in installation, sculpture, and stop-motion animation. My work is deeply influenced by an interest in language, literature, psychology, and history and explores how we construct identity, our world, and our value systems.
I am most proud of several unusual special projects that I have worked on based on technology and/or collaboration. My most ambitious project was an animatronic installation about the life of Nicola Tesla in collaboration with Rowan University’s computer science department for which we received a National Endowment grant. This installation included larger-than-life figures that I modeled of Tesla as a young man and as an old man. In this installation, these figures move and speak to viewers as they approach the figures. These figures existed in an installation of the highlights of Tesla’s life including an animation and a soundscape of his life. Another project of which I am most proud is a stop motion animation of “Alice in Dystopia” where Alice and the rabbit go down the wrong rabbit hole and end up in 2020 and must face all the social and ecological conditions. There are a few other special projects such as an interactive installation where a field of suspended figures move and recite T.S. Elliot’s poem Four Quartets. Also, a collaboration with a dancer using my sculpture as partners called Dreamfields is a project of which I am proud. Clips of these are all viewable on my website at www.jeannejaffe.com.
I am most proud of these because they all required me to stretch my abilities and vision beyond just sculpture or installation and required that I create whole worlds and think in new ways.
Are there any apps, books, podcasts, blogs or other resources you think our readers should check out?
I love reading about psychology and philosophy. One of my favorite books is “A Thousand Plateaus ” by Deleuze and Guattari, which has deeply impacted my work and my understanding of the possibility of nonhierarchical organization of the psyche and of society. Other books include Jacque Lacan and his thoughts about ideas of the Real being that experience that exists outside of language , symbolic order structured by language, culture, and social order. this has been a big influence on my exploration of pre-verbal forms .
In terms of podcasts, I love to listen to Hidden Brain on NPR and also ON Being also on NPR.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.jeannejaffe.com
- Instagram: jeannejaffestudio
