Artist Statement
My work engages with the concept of magical thinking regarding mental health, anxiety, and repetitive thoughts. Seen frequently throughout religion and fairy tales is the idea that a single person can ward off terrible danger or loss through some great feat of labor or personal sacrifice. Through my practice I engage with my own personal anxieties as if I could grant them this same power in day to day life.
Materiality and process are of the utmost importance as I process intangible concepts. Weaving in itself is a record of the body, recording tensions and thoughts with each throw. Processes such as hand weaving, destruction of woven cloth, repetitive mending and embroidery physically enact the creative, destructive, and repetitive processes of anxiety and depression, embedding difficult emotions into physical object and installations.
The body of work presented here works through a concept I was introduced to when I first started therapy as a teenager – that to reduce anxiety, thoughts should pass like clouds in the sky, rather than lingering. I’ve laughed over time at the absurdity of this thought (and the irony that if I had thoughts that passed like clouds I may not need therapy). In this collection of weavings I work with thoughts and feelings that stay with me over time and weave them into my own sky. Through warp painting and hand weaving fabric, cutting it into pieces, and reassembling with applique, I physically enact the mental processes of anxiety, ultimately making an unmoving image of thoughts that won’t pass.
Recently this work has moved from personal thoughts and literal blue skies to playing with color and double entendres in language, lending to an ambiguity in whether the emotion alluded to is a personal, private feeling or one of global stress surrounding current issues.
About the Artist
Savannah Jubic (b. 1993, York, Pennsylvania) is a Chicago based fiber and installation artist. She has been exhibited both in the United States and internationally since 2012, including The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL; University of Chicago Arts Incubator, Chicago, IL; Line Dot Editions, Chicago, IL; The Adler Planetarium Chicago, IL; Northern Illinois University Art Museum, DeKalb, IL; St Louis Artist’s Guild, St Louis, MO; the Weave Shed, Rabun Gap, GA; and Kriti Gallery, Varanasi, India.
Jubic holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (2016) from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she focused in Fiber and Material Studies. In her time at SAIC, Jubic was the recipient of a Distinguished Scholar Scholarship and a John W. Kurtich Travel Scholarship. In 2017 Jubic was the recipient of the Mary Hambidge Weaving Fellowship Distinguished Fellowship from the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts and Sciences in Rabun Gap, GA. In 2020 Jubic was the recipient of a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Covid-19 Emergency Grant.
Jubic currently resides in Chicago, IL where she works as an artist, educator, and activist.
© Savannah Jubic