Jessica Calderwood
Jessica Calderwood
Jessica Calderwood is an image-maker and sculptor that works in obscure craft media. Trained as a metalsmith and enamelist, her objects and images make statements about contemporary life. Since receiving her BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art and her MFA from Arizona State University, her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and internationally. She has participated in artist residencies with the John Michael Kohler Arts/Industry Program, Ferro Corporation, and the Mesa Arts Center. Her work has also been published in Metalsmith Magazine, American Craft, NICHE, Ornament, the Lark 500 series, and the Art of Enameling. She is currently an Associate Professor of Art at Ball State University.
My most recent work uses forms, such as drapery and stylized botanicals, to block out, cover, and hide parts of the human form. These compositions become a negation, a censoring or denial of what lies beneath. These anthropomorphic beings appear at once, powerful and powerless, beautiful and absurd, inflated, and amputated.
Trained as a metalsmith, I am interested in using traditional craft media, both for their creative properties, as well as their historical references to ‘marginal art forms', including enamel, porcelain, fiber, and polymer clay. Throughout this exploration, I have been working in a miniature scale, initially as a way to create maquettes. Over time, these smaller works became the focus, by creating an intimacy that is only discovered through this miniature scale.
