Exhibit by Rachael Marne Jones
Becoming Undone refers to the initial state of wonder and panic, before recognition takes its’ finite hold and quells any spark of discovery beyond what is already known, recognized and comfortable.
Jessie Wilber Gallery
May 8 – June 30, 2025
Reception
Artist reception with artist talks on Friday, May 9th from 5:00-8:00pm
Artist Statement
The initial state of wonder and panic is a state of being that forces one to flounder in suspension, grasping for familiarity while enticing us to settle on possibility. In flux, we are forced to revel in a state of entanglement, meaning is emerging and decaying simultaneously, an acceptance of the unknown is mandatory to move forward. Using both human engineered and “natural” forms that blend and bleed into one another through their shared proximity and processes of degradation, each sculpture is a physical quandary into blurring the line between anthropocentric and geologic time scales. Constructed chaos, implied/invented phenomena, micro/macro scales, still life and landscapes collide within these poems of the discarded.
My work and studio practice explore relation through the fluid interactions of materiality; using the artifacts produced by their mergence as metaphors for personal experiences, contemporary environmental events and as palpations to the limits of anthropocentric perception. Local, global, and interpersonal relationships are explored to map a moving target of a sense of place. Time scales are rendered fluid. The archeological quality of clay inspires a deep reverence and responsibility for guiding particles into new forms to evoke a material poetry relevant to contemporary times, while paying homage to their deep histories.
Artist Bio
Rachael Marne Jones is a multi-disciplinary ceramic artist and writer whose artistic practice and research interests have ignited connections across the globe. Her primary interests are solastalgia, ecological awareness, and the inherent archaeological quality of clay to tell stories through time, form, material and place based social interaction.
She has completed residencies at the Red Lodge Clay Center, Medalta International Artists in Residence, the Cub Creek Foundation, and Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts, as well as being the first artist Fellow of the Global Sustainability Fellows Program of the Sustainability Laboratory. She taught ceramics and drawing courses at St. Lawrence University as a full time Visiting Assistant Professor in Northern New York for over 5 years.
As a born and raised Montanan, educated within the Montana university systems, she is ecstatic to return to the Montana clay community as the Programs Coordinator for Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Montana.
