ARTIST STATEMENT
I wear a women’s size 11…I never cared about Cinderella and no damn shoes. But, the mystery of the purses that my grandma and her friends carried? Not only the bags, but what lurked inside them? Well, there I was fascinated. Lucky quarters, Vaseline, obituaries of the long dead, Newport cigarettes, the front door keys to the White ladies’ homes that they cleaned and cooked for, oranges to keep up their blood sugar, 25 cent “wedding rings” they used to keep no-good dudes away when they rode the greenline, and razors for the one’s who got handsy and wouldn’t take the hint.
I started collecting bags when I was 21 and never ever had a bag not fit…no matter what I might weigh. It was inevitable that I would design a bag. A clutch. Specifically a magazine clutch in homage to the vulva-like clutch carried by Tippi Hedron in “Marnie”. It glistens, it folds, it holds.
The image was an experiment in minimalistic displays of power. Who’s in charge? And who’s the Bitch? In it’s embryonic form the image was a part of designs created during “The Blood Sessions”. A series created post COVID of images featuring but not highlighting shades of red.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Jae Green is a poet, second generation artist, mother and cancer survivor originally from the South side of Chicago. Her poetry can be found in anthologies such as “Residual Believers”, “Smithsonian Magazine” and “Voices from the Heartland”. She has performed at The Green Mill, Randolph Street Gallery, Uncommon Ground, The Chicago Cultural Center, Woman Made Gallery, The Chicago Poetry Fest, Metro, Around the Coyote, and The Catherine Edelman Gallery. She recently participated in BodyPassages, a year-long collaboration between the Chicago Danztheatre Ensemble and The Chicago Poetry Center. Later in 2021 she will be collaborating to create new art for auction with “Brushes with Cancer”.
At the close of 2019 Jae Green began creating art with texts, graphics, photos and experimental forms with found objects. Jae hopes to merge her early exposures to pop and outsider art with her current existence as writer and performer.
Jae has found herself at a midpoint in both art and life. A series of losses and gains giving rise to the question of ‘What comes next?!’ This is an especially salient question for women facing widowhood, abandonment, infertility, illness, changing identity and social status or divorce.
© Jeanette Green