Today we’d like to introduce you to Jane Margarette.
Hi Jane, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I first came into the arts through music. From the age of five, I trained to be a classical musician. I played the piano, clarinet, cello, saxophone… the list goes on. I lost interest in that late in high school and took a hiatus, but then rediscovered music in my early 20s through playing in various indie bands in my hometown of San Diego. There was a lot of crossover between the music and visual arts scenes in San Diego at the time, and as I became more involved in those communities, I found that I actually connected more with painting and sculpture than with music. In 2013, I went to California State University Long Beach intending to study graphic design. But then by chance, I took a ceramics class (unaware of the program’s strong reputation) and I instantly fell in love. There are so many fascinating and complex ways to work with ceramics – it has been an exceedingly generous vehicle for me to materialize ideas through.
CSULB was also the first time in my life where I was surrounded by other artists with active studio practices. Pushing each other in this context – to experiment and work hard and grow – showed me one model of what being an artist could be. From there, I got my MFA in ceramics at UCLA, where I worked alongside so many talented people and continued to hone my vision and style as an artist.
I graduated in 2020 and have been lucky enough to focus on making work for a steady stream of group and solo shows out of my home studio in East LA.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I would say it has been a spectrum… My art practice was formed almost entirely inside of an institutional setting, where classroom politics and bureaucratic nonsense were sometimes frustrating and limiting. But those institutions also provided me with intimate access to wonderful facilities and teachers and fellow artists.
In early 2020, COVID canceled my thesis show at UCLA just a month before the opening. I had been working so hard and this was a devastating, anticlimactic end to graduate school… with a lot of uncertainty moving forward. So I just kept my head down and continued working in my studio. With no deadlines for the first time ever, I focused on making work that was stimulating and fun. The work I made during that period has completely shaped my art practice today.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am an artist that specializes in ceramic sculpture. I’m known for making wall works of oversized mechanical locks or winged creatures like butterflies, bats, bugs and birds that wield weapons and dangle lures. Sometimes the creatures are themselves disguised as locks. The work is vibrant and playful in both palette and form, retaining elements of brutality, domination, and hardness that explore themes of strength, protection, and sensuality. I’m fascinated by the coupling of objects from the natural and industrialized worlds. I’m looking for ways to address a seemingly impossible situation in which nature is trapped by our objectification and commodification and has no way of escaping destruction. The depiction of locks and chains are used metaphorically to trap and exploit these creatures, preventing their natural fulfillment. It’s quite bleak.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.janemargarette.com
- Instagram: @janemargarette
Image Credits
Reid Calvert, Ian Byers-Gamber, Max Cleary, and Anat Ebgi Gallery.
