Jen Pack and Philippe
Jestin at Ampersand
“Not so long ago, virtually all American girls grew
up learning how to sew. We took a class in junior high
called ‘Home Economics,’ which vaguely implied
that we’d be learning how to take charge of the
financial responsibilities of running a home. In practice,
we learned how to make things like tuna casseroles and
sew an A-line
skirt and a hideous garment called a ‘jumper.’
More significant than the actual clothes or the making
of them was a sense of our place in the world which the
whole culture of ‘Home Economics’ implied
– sewing not as craft form but as duty. Our memories
of time spent at the machine may also bring back all the
emotional turmoil of adolescence: a heady dose of ambivalent
nostalgia for what was certainly a different era.
“As with any activity which involves hours of repetition,
as well as requiring intense concentration, one must enter
into an altered state to facilitate the process of sewing
– similar to the trance-like state one enters while
drawing. In her recent exhibition, Threadworks,
Jen Pack displays playful and intriguing work with fiber
that includes some virtuoso feats of stitching. Pack comes
from a generation for whom sewing carries far less emotional
baggage. She states her intention to ‘reinterpret
formal minimalism in the context of a feminine convention.’
“Pack has chosen her tools both for their technical
potential, the stitching becoming ‘a means of creating
a graphic line and making a piece sculptural and textured,’
and because of their allusion to traditional feminine
pursuits. As a bonus, she engages in the contemporary
dialogue of what constitutes ‘fine art,’ further
stating her preference for organic form which ‘marries
the imperfect quality of the handmade with the sameness
and regularity of machine stitching. I strive to integrate
hybrid ideas: straddling the fence between craft and art,
color theory and the rawness of an emotional response
to intense color.’
“Threadworks presents us with nine sculptural,
wall-mounted pieces using silk and thread. Pack’s
primary focus is on an exploration of color, but her formal,
largely minimal, compositions also evoke organic references,
including hair and the human body. Hanging on the wall
is a light-colored wooden frame about a foot square, stretched
with translucent silk: Green Dimension presents
fabric stitched with parallel lines of bright hues, varying
from deeply saturated – viridian, kelly, mint, yellow
green – then fading to paler tints. This pattern
then reverses as the strands sweep around to the other
side. The threads continue down and out from the stitched
silk, extending about five feet to where they form a semicircular
arc along the floor defined by a curving metal rod to
which they are tied; their ends lie in a jumble. The conical
shape suggests a bodice and hoop skirt, or the figure
of a woman.
“Related in their use of layered fabric, we find
a triangular division in Golden Triangle, horizontal
bands in Pink Sun. These pieces also involve
the luxurious extension of the threads off the stretchers,
in Pink Sun carefully arranged in straight lines
that are pinned meticulously to the wall, before being
allowed to trail off haphazardly. The pink ranges from
magenta at the top, red, coral, peach and violet, to a
faint rosy pale hue.
“Red Mess displays a long tangle of bright
red skeins, departing from the overall emphasis on order
and clean lines. Once again, Pack works from deeper hues
in the outer edges to a lighter hue in the center. The
ratty strands fall six feet to the floor, tapering in
the center, suggesting perhaps a beard, or pubic hair.
Three small works hanging close together function as a
triptych: Thread Box, Orange Threads and Pink
Part. Thread Box uses black and gray thread
on pale pink silk stitched in a pattern leaving a square
negative space, the effect unmistakably suggesting an
abstraction of female genitalia. Pack’s constructions
offer a strong sense of presence, each suggesting a distinct
personality.
“In Ampersand’s other room, Philippe Jestin
presents Expressing Relief, fifteen wall-mounted
pieces of mixed media including wood, paint and resin.
Jestin intends to suggest the idea of the body as a ‘flexible
container.’ Sharing with Pack a focus on color,
his work presents us with glowing images of human silhouettes.
An acrobatic red male figure, stretching upward in a ‘bow’
pose, is housed inside a lozenge-shaped, oval shape. Adjacent,
a portly figure stands, arms akimbo, his bald green figure
displaying a hefty beer belly.
“Other pieces are more abstracted, apparently viewed
from above or from other extreme angles. The use of a
photographic process as a step in execution of this work
asserts a strong presence. Two pieces, substrate, numbers
11 and 12, use aluminum baking sheets, with the figure
a negative space which has been cut and removed. The glittering
resin shines beneath in red and green. In addition to
the flipped over baking sheets, Jestin uses lazy susans
as the foundation for several pieces. A San Francisco
artist relocated from France, Jestin not only studied
science at the Sorbonne, but also worked for a time as
a sous-chef; his familiarity with food and the tools of
cooking give this work an additional layer of meaning
and interest.
“Jestin states ‘One objective in treating
the carved drawing with pigmented resin is to bring to
the foreground the idea of fluidity within the material
and the human body. How we choose to recognize or not
this ability can be a matter of physical experience...in
any case something to reflect on.’ Considering that
we are, after all, some 90 percent water, we might suspect
that Jestin is on to something here, and we may think
about the activities and functions of our various bodily
fluids – giving the title of the exhibition a new
meaning. Still, just how effectively the hardened resin,
which assumes a brittle, glass-like appearance, conveys
the suggestion of fluidity is another matter.
“Overall, the two artists present a predominantly
optimistic vision of our current human condition. Both
use domestic objects, Pack’s taken from the vocabulary
of sewing, Jestin’s from cooking, to create colorful,
formal objects which reference – obliquely or more
directly – the human body. While emotional content
informs the work, Jestin’s contorted figures beginning
to suggest a kind of fundamental angst, and Pack’s
obsessive fiber pieces are, of course, bound to a tradition
firmly interwoven in the texture of feminist fabric, neither
artist engages us too deeply in overt political agendas.
We ultimately find the implied content receding to the
back of our minds, and enjoy the work primarily for its
aesthetic appeal.”
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