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Jamie Earnest is from Alabama and holds a BFA in Painting from Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art. Earnest is a recipient of the Ellen Battell Stoeckel Fellowship and through this fellowship attended the Yale Norfolk Summer School of Art during summer 2015. Earnest has been in multiple group shows in Pittsburgh, New York, Boston, Alabama and Suzhou, China. Earnest's work was recently featured at The Andy Warhol Museum. Earnest's debut solo show, "Your Home or Mine?" opened Summer 2016 at Cindy Lisica Gallery. Earnest had a solo exhibition at The Union Hall in Pittsburgh, PA in 2018 and was included in the group exhibition, Memory Palace, at Equity Gallery in New York City. In January 2019, she had the solo exhibition, Thicker Than a Sticker, at Vulcan Gallery in Birmingham, AL. Earnest lives and works in Pittsburgh, PA
Published January 23rd, 2020, Interview responses collected in the months prior
What projects are you working on right now?
Recently I finished my first editioned works (edition of 20) for the program: Community Supported Art. For these pieces I felt compelled to explore a new medium of expression, textile embroidery, with which I had never utilized. I am currently working on two pieces for the 25th Anniversary of the Andy Warhol Museum while participating in a year long residency at The Brew House Association, which began in July 2019. With this residency I am part of a 6 artist cohort where we each have a 24/7 available studio space. With this residency I want to play. I've been painting nearly all of my life and am definitely in a true romance with painting. But I feel the need to play and experiment with a completely different context and medium - sculpture. I am beginning to explore the possibilities of 3D printing, casting, and clay. I am not sure what I expect the end game to be for this experimentation - but I feel nothing stronger than the urge to just have a playful digression.
How do you keep yourself accountable in your practice?
I hold myself accountable with the devilish double edged sword - guilt. I was raised in a single parent household where a hard work mentality was the minimum. Much to my gratefulness and dismay, attending Carnegie Mellon for my undergrad pushed this nonstop work mentality amongst the entire student population at this university. On the other hand, I've had countless conversations with my creative circles of, artists, musicians, writers, etc, where we discuss the idea of the 'switch'. This switch being a mechanism within the mind of humans who are able to differentiate between "work" and "play" - where the individual is able to flip between the two. For example, coming home at the end of the day from a working day job - maybe you flip this switch and suddenly you do not continue on with the active productive mind towards the duties of your job. I feel that creatives have a hard time switching off their active mind towards creating - especially as visual artists, my eyes are always working, looking, and transforming thoughts and ideas in my mind that spark the active motion towards making new work.
How do you stay motivated to pursue your creative work?
As mentioned before, I can't seem to access the ability to turn off this 'switch'. I feel that my eyes are always looking and finding inspiration, my ears are always perked by certain phrases or words spoken around me. I religiously keep notes on my phone whenever something activates my senses that I wish to pursue in my creative work. Some notes consist of just phrases I hear those around me saying during normal conversation, links to articles with stories with content I wish to explore, and even just lists of words I feel that relate to or that I aspire to incorporate in the context of my practice. Additionally, I constantly take pictures on my phone of things that I loosely consider "inspiration" - which all live in the cleverly titled photo album on my phone titled "inspiration". Images range from screenshots of images I see online to images I've taken myself. Besides the physical idea of chronicling phrases and images for 'inspiration', I try to keep the act of dialogue and conversation alive in my practice by bringing artists, mentors, past professors, and arts professionals to visit my studio and hold open conversations with.
Where do you hope to be 10 years from now and what would you like to say to yourself?
This is a difficult question. To be completely honest, this decade long interview project is vastly intimidating, yet insanely alluring. The idea of having my growth, failures, and overall rollercoaster of the progression of my career chronicled in one place is hard to imagine. For example, when I started out actively pursuing art as an education and career at the age of 18, I was determined to be an installation artist - playing with light and construction. To my surprise, after a painting class in undergrad, I quickly fell in love with the idea of the infinite possibilities this medium gave to me. Contrary to installation - painting allowed me to create without the limitations of math and gravity. This being said - I've recently had a newfound interest in the idea of the sculptural object. With these twists and turns that I think have always been there in my practice, the words I'd give to myself in 10 years would be: "I hope you have followed the curveballs and changes that approach your mind - it is easy to be comfortable - keep your mind active and questioning towards the methods and mediums of creating your work."
What projects are you working on right now?
Recently I finished my first editioned works (edition of 20) for the program: Community Supported Art. For these pieces I felt compelled to explore a new medium of expression, textile embroidery, with which I had never utilized. I am currently working on two pieces for the 25th Anniversary of the Andy Warhol Museum while participating in a year long residency at The Brew House Association, which began in July 2019. With this residency I am part of a 6 artist cohort where we each have a 24/7 available studio space. With this residency I want to play. I've been painting nearly all of my life and am definitely in a true romance with painting. But I feel the need to play and experiment with a completely different context and medium - sculpture. I am beginning to explore the possibilities of 3D printing, casting, and clay. I am not sure what I expect the end game to be for this experimentation - but I feel nothing stronger than the urge to just have a playful digression.
How do you keep yourself accountable in your practice?
I hold myself accountable with the devilish double edged sword - guilt. I was raised in a single parent household where a hard work mentality was the minimum. Much to my gratefulness and dismay, attending Carnegie Mellon for my undergrad pushed this nonstop work mentality amongst the entire student population at this university. On the other hand, I've had countless conversations with my creative circles of, artists, musicians, writers, etc, where we discuss the idea of the 'switch'. This switch being a mechanism within the mind of humans who are able to differentiate between "work" and "play" - where the individual is able to flip between the two. For example, coming home at the end of the day from a working day job - maybe you flip this switch and suddenly you do not continue on with the active productive mind towards the duties of your job. I feel that creatives have a hard time switching off their active mind towards creating - especially as visual artists, my eyes are always working, looking, and transforming thoughts and ideas in my mind that spark the active motion towards making new work.
How do you stay motivated to pursue your creative work?
As mentioned before, I can't seem to access the ability to turn off this 'switch'. I feel that my eyes are always looking and finding inspiration, my ears are always perked by certain phrases or words spoken around me. I religiously keep notes on my phone whenever something activates my senses that I wish to pursue in my creative work. Some notes consist of just phrases I hear those around me saying during normal conversation, links to articles with stories with content I wish to explore, and even just lists of words I feel that relate to or that I aspire to incorporate in the context of my practice. Additionally, I constantly take pictures on my phone of things that I loosely consider "inspiration" - which all live in the cleverly titled photo album on my phone titled "inspiration". Images range from screenshots of images I see online to images I've taken myself. Besides the physical idea of chronicling phrases and images for 'inspiration', I try to keep the act of dialogue and conversation alive in my practice by bringing artists, mentors, past professors, and arts professionals to visit my studio and hold open conversations with.
Where do you hope to be 10 years from now and what would you like to say to yourself?
This is a difficult question. To be completely honest, this decade long interview project is vastly intimidating, yet insanely alluring. The idea of having my growth, failures, and overall rollercoaster of the progression of my career chronicled in one place is hard to imagine. For example, when I started out actively pursuing art as an education and career at the age of 18, I was determined to be an installation artist - playing with light and construction. To my surprise, after a painting class in undergrad, I quickly fell in love with the idea of the infinite possibilities this medium gave to me. Contrary to installation - painting allowed me to create without the limitations of math and gravity. This being said - I've recently had a newfound interest in the idea of the sculptural object. With these twists and turns that I think have always been there in my practice, the words I'd give to myself in 10 years would be: "I hope you have followed the curveballs and changes that approach your mind - it is easy to be comfortable - keep your mind active and questioning towards the methods and mediums of creating your work."
Find Jamie Earnest on Instagram
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