Below is a 13 piece mixed media series entitled Grace Disguised after a book by Professor Jerry Sittser of Whitworth University. The work, created from roughly January to November 2008 when Jessie was 22-years-old, combines photography with drawing. From 2004-2008, during her years at Georgia College & State University, she began thinking, writing, and making art and photographs that explored the anomaly of human suffering and gratitude, death and living, and hope in loss while documenting her mother's then 9 year battle with a malignant brain tumor, which handicapped her entirely both physically and mentally.
Each piece has meaning, some of which is more obvious without explanation than others.
Today the work, including the brief statement below, typifies Jessie's early 20's in both art-making and in her spiritual beliefs—which are perhaps indistinguishable. It holds even greater significance with her mother's 2012 passing. The images are a marriage of mediums she worked in prior to the series, as well as an amalgamation of individual thoughts and things learned from failure and the weathering of various storms.
Artist Statement Here
