Note from the producer: this is the sixth and final episode of the third season of a series on WYSO called Studio Visit. This season, I focus on artists who regularly work with collaborators or have creative partners in their families who influence or participate in making art.
The featured artists will use various media, from photography to sculpture. Each segment will feature artist collaborators and include a brief biography, a sound-rich scene of a visit to their studio, and an interview about their work and how they connect creatively.
The old brick warehouses known as Front Street Studios in East Dayton have the kind of space artists dream about: huge factory windows, high ceilings, and wooden floors.
It’s home to divisible, where Jeffrey Cortland Jones puts on international art shows, and Heather Jones makes what she calls “sewn paintings.” Jones and Cortland Jones are a couple with two kids who have built two thriving art careers.
Cortland Jones opens the door to a room split in half to form the gallery and Heather’s studio. The walls are filled with his white-on-white minimalist paintings and Heather’s draped swaths of material covered with black and white triangles.
“We met in 1999. We met in grad school at UC. We met at a Halloween party,” Jones says.
“That's true,” Cortland Jones replies.
“I was an angel,” she says.
“I was a cheerleader," he says.
And Cortland Jones still is, on the subject of his partner's work.
“To me, she is my favorite artist of all time. And when I look at her work, I'm awestruck,” he says.
He's not alone. Her work is in shows and collections worldwide, but it was a long road. Heather was home with a boy and a girl under two when they first started a family.
“I felt like I needed for my own, I think, sanity, a creative outlet, some way to continue something that wasn't taking care of these two beings that I loved with all my heart. I soon realized that if I worked in textiles, I could do that while caring for the children." Jones says.
"I didn't have to worry about them getting into my materials or eating my materials, or if I had 15 minutes where they were both playing, I could get something out and make something that I could see. It was just something that could be involved in our day-to-day life,” she says.
So, she made textiles inspired by her love of quilts and her immediate surroundings. She published a book called “Quilt Local” with 40 designs. Meanwhile, Cortland Jones taught at the University of Dayton, curated shows and got known for small paintings made with spray paint, a nod to his punk-rock, graffiti art days as a student.
“I didn't want to learn how to make representational objects. Luckily, I had a professor who saw something different in me. And he instantly started showing me all these folks working in these minimal abstract terms." he says, "And there was something just beautiful and sensual and intimate that I loved. And so I kind of just became a student of that. And that’s not changed.”
When he went to the groundbreaking show of Gee’s Bend quilters, he saw a connection to the abstract painters he studied. Later, Jones began to show her work as paintings instead of quilts. Their separate practices were starting to cross paths. Then, they did a show in Cincinnati.
“It was a two-person show. It was our work, and we did not come up with an idea to create cohesive work. It was, 'I'm going to do this. You do your thing,'" Jones says. "And then I will never forget when we brought our work in that day and started unpacking things like, you totally saw connections between the work, even though it was subconscious, I think. When you're with somebody for so long, I mean, I think, not that we share a brain, but I do think that we are on the same wavelength. And so it was just really fascinating for me to see these connections.”
Similar colors, forms, and compositions. They speak a common visual language despite working in very different media. And they share the same deep commitment to being artists.
“One of the greatest things about having an artist for a partner is you appreciate being creative and having a creative practice, and you also recognize how important that is,” Jones says.
“We understand that we need time. We understand that we need space; we need those creative moments where we have to lock ourselves in the studio and get something done, and one has to step up and do something while the other is in the studio." Cortland Jones says, "And that ebbs and flows all the time. And we couldn't do that if we were in different careers and not understanding or compassionate about each other's needs.”
“Right,” Jones says.
Being an artist is woven into their whole lives. It takes a lot of effort to persist. Finding the right person to join you on that journey is one very lucky break.
