jess jones

 

TopoQuilt: Taco Town, 2017

68 x 51 inches

Found quilt top, hand-dyed silk organza, geographic data.

Statement

Quilts often reveal the circumstances of their makers. While quilts can display access to technology, materials, and leisure time, they also can expose extreme resourcefulness and need. These original quilts, hand sewn by anonymous makers, and discarded to thrift stores, inspire me to consider those with whom I share the city landscape. I layer these original pieces with geographic data, creating a digitally derived stitched drawing of the topography of a specific location. I address my fellow quilters directly by both quilting my interaction (rather than using other media), and connecting formal elements of their work with the geographic locations I am overlaying. I hope for these playful combinations to be slightly more accessible to quilters emphasizing our potentially shared locations and experiences. Textiles have topography and they naturally lend themselves to work involving landscape. The socioeconomic landscape in Atlanta is changing dramatically and sections of the city shift to include some people and exclude others. Through spoiling these original quilts I preserve them, and my work is a way of feeling connected in a city that does more to separate than connect us.

 

JESS JONES

Associate Professor,

Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA

Jess Jones is a textile artist and Associate Professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia as well as Affiliate Faculty with the Institute of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Jones’s work examines psycho-geography, the relationship of Textiles to the urban environment, and the inclusion of digitally derived layers in stitched compositions. Her work was featured in the Spring 2017 issue of Surface Design Journal, titled Shifting Landscapes.