EMILY BLYTHE JONES
LOS ANGELES
Conversations with Jessica & Heidi
Written by Heidi Woo

Artist and former art educator, Emily Blythe Jones, has invented a sustainable mold-making technique that she uses extensively in her sculpture work. Originally from the Northwest suburbs of Chicago in Illinois, the artist now resides in Los Angeles after completing her MFA at California State University in Northridge. Relying on everyday ingredients found at any grocery store, Emily’s molds are biodegradable, recyclable, reusable, and safe to use in home studios. Aligned with her professional philosophy (that transparency is better for all), Emily shares her knowledge through online workshops — at no cost to students. With eco-conscious solutions at the heart of their work, artists like Emily are paving new ways for art to become sustainable — not only in terms of the process and materials used to create art, but also for artists to develop careers with longevity and a sense of freedom. Emily brilliantly makes the connection that sustainable art practices pave the way for sustainable art careers. It is her desire to help free fellow sculptors from the constraints of production costs, enabling them to flourish in their creative endeavors for years to come.

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Journey Towards Fabrication

Tell us about your selection process for how you choose projects. What’s taking up your time lately? EMILY: In addition to creating my own body of work and researching sustainable ways to make it, I love finding ways to collaborate with other artists. The spirit of collaboration is something that I have always pursued and was encouraged in my formal education — to not only create work together but also engage in the conceptual aspect of “call and response.” Collaboration can also function as mutual aid where we think of ways to help each other, whether it’s through actually making work together or creating opportunities for each other.

Before COVID-19, I collaborated with a few artists as a fabricator in their studios. I’ve worked with maybe five or six other artists at this point, but I’m currently taking a break from going into other people’s studios while following Los Angeles’ “stay-at-home orders.” Functioning as a fabricator is slightly different than being a studio assistant where oftentimes, the work is administrative: helping people with their websites, documenting work, managing the mail, and being an all-around assistant. Fabrication work typically means you have technical knowledge about making something that the artist needs assistance with. Fabrication allows me to increase my knowledge while also helping somebody else. Essentially, growing the community of artists that I want to be working, engaging, and learning with, all at the same time. Then — if I’m doing it right — I get paid as well! Most recently, I had the honor of working with the artist Claudia Parducci, who exhibits with Ochi Projects in Mid-City. I helped Claudia make some of the work that she is currently exhibiting. Throughout the COVID-19 period though, I have been working on my own studio work and developing educational workshops.

Where do people go to find you if they want to hire you as a fabricator? Can you tell us more about future plans and new works you have in the pipeline? EMILY: It’s primarily through word of mouth. I recently put on my Instagram bio that I’m a fabricator and that I do commissions. It feels like a bold step — to be advertising those services. But I’m really dedicated to what I’m doing in my studio right now. I’m learning what it feels like to have this level of self-confidence for the first time, and I like the future plans I’m envisioning for my studio. I have a pretty clear business plan for creating a shop out of my studio that would be a gateway to a bigger body of work. I’m creating a series of functional and figurative sculptures rendered in clay using the mold-making techniques I’ve developed. I want to create work that challenges accessibility to fine art and design to allow for conceptual artwork to enter into domestic environments.

Sustainability in the Studio

Emily speaks about her intention for creating more equity in art through accessibility and sustainability. Relying on technology to share information, Emily and her partner, Sasha Fishman, empower all artists to sustain their creative endeavors during this uncertain time.

When did you first start incorporating sustainability into your art? EMILY: I’ve been making sculptural work since before I graduated with my MFA in 2016 and I started sustainability research shortly after. I had been trying to figure out a way to make figurative sculptural work and was frustrated because I was still learning how to sculpt anatomical realism. I kept feeling frustrated that I was not good enough yet to be making multiple castings from the silicone molds that could be quite expensive to make. I just kept looking for a solution. What I found was a reusable, recyclable, reclaimable technique, inspired by a recipe from the YouTube channel, Ultimate Paper Mache by Jonni Good, that uses glycerin, gelatin and thermoplastic. I’m working on producing an instructional zine for sale that will demonstrate the technique that I have adapted.

Since the pandemic, you’ve started to delve deeper into sustainability initiatives, culminating in online educational videos for art students in September. What prompted you to act on this? EMILY: It’s a real priority for me to get this information out there to students who are suffering because they’re not able to use the facilities that they need. Schools are not going to be open for a while, and this new mold-making technique can be done at home in your kitchen! I want to keep students safe and healthy. I think it all comes down to trying to feel compassion for artists at every socioeconomic level and wanting to give them tools that prevent cost from being an inhibiting factor in creating. I’m really interested in the effects the pandemic will have on our education system — asking myself, “What is the tectonic shift this pandemic will cause in the way we educate students? And how can we as artists and educators lean into that?”
I’m currently working with my friend Sasha Fishman on a few workshops that we can deliver to classrooms about our approaches to making sustainable art. We want to challenge people to think about how different modes of thinking can help to avoid additional waste in the artistic process. Our topics will cover nontoxic substances and how to be as low impact as possible. We’re really excited. We’d like to build a series of talks that we can give at different universities and create a deck of educational materials for them.

Something that I get frustrated with sometimes is “tribalism” within the arts, and people not sharing knowledge and experiences among disciplines. For example, there have historically been arbitrary dividing lines between “fine art” and “craft” — all of that needs to be reconsidered, in my opinion. I believe that it should be about intention and concept rather than materials or techniques. I believe that artists from diverse disciplines should recognize the similarity of our goals, and that by sharing knowledge, we are all better off because we can make more exciting work and potentially be more sustainable. My core tenets are, “Let’s all talk to each other, and figure out what we’re all doing. I want to respect what’s important to you. I’m not going to tell you that you’re doing something wrong. Instead, maybe we can all learn from each other.”

Collaborating with Artists During the Pandemic

Collaboration is a recurring theme in Emily’s approach to her work. Through her partnerships with other artists, Emily supports an ethos of community in which success is a collective experience and one person’s knowledge and expertise benefits all.

You mentioned coming into contact with fellow artist Sharon Louden at a talk she gave, and her message about forming collaborations, which seemed to resonate with you. Tell us more about how you collaborate with other artists. EMILY: I am a part of a small artist run collective here in Los Angeles called Monte Vista Projects. One of my co-members, Rakeem Cunningham, is an incredible artist, and we were slotted to have a two-person show at Elephant Projects. We had been working together conceptually and collaboratively, but COVID-19 required the postponement of the show. I started to think about ways that I could pivot to avoid getting mired in depression. I had also been auditing a class at Los Angeles Harbor College and closure of their facilities meant I didn’t have access to their equipment anymore.

I needed to figure something else out and get clever with how I could continue making ceramic work. I had done a large commission a couple years earlier and was paid a final installment, so I decided to buckle up and commit to spending that money on a kiln. I was able to purchase a beautiful medium kiln from friend and fellow artist Nick McPhail. Next up is perfecting a functioning, safe studio space so I can start making ceramic artwork, which will hopefully be shown at Elephant next year.

Monte Vista Projects follows our mission statement rigorously, we “prioritize working with underrepresented artists to broaden access to artistic discourse.” I have met the most extraordinary artists through them. I met Sasha Fishman through Monte Vista Projects when we selected one of her artworks for an open call. Sasha makes incredible work and most recently completed a fellowship program called “SURF” (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships)at Caltech researching bioplastics made from sea creatures. Our partnership is really interesting because we have a complementary research thread. She is researching entirely sustainable alternatives for clear castable resins as a way to address the ecological dangers of micro-plastics. Comparatively, I am focused on the modes of production that precede the casting stage. While I’m working on the mold-making materials, she’s working on the casting materials, so our interests really complement each other in a lovely way. The dream is that we might cast her materials into my molds someday. Every day, it seems we learn new things that we can share with each other. For example, she just sent me information about a company doing research on a vegan collagen substitute that is grown within cells and I contacted the company to see where they are with their research. It feels like a very fruitful collaboration we’re engaging in. We’re talking about writing a book someday and finding ways to reach fellow enthusiasts to expand the possibilities for sustainable art-making processes.

https://www.emilybjones.com/

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Workshops and the zine are organized by Slow + Sustain through the volunteer efforts of our contributors. Funding comes from both the contributors and the public.