Jessie Bloom is an artist and designer, based in Hawthorne, New Jersey. Her work has been exhibited nationally at venues such as the Fuller Craft Museum, Passaic County Arts Center, Yeiser Art Center, New Bedford Art Museum and Appalachian Center for Craft. Bloom received her Bachelor of Science in Fiber Science & Apparel Design from Cornell University. She is a recent recipient of a 2023 Individual Artist Fellowship in Crafts from the New Jersey Council on the Arts.

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Recent Exhibitions

2023

Interpretations 2023, Visions Museum of Textile Art’s juried biennial, San Diego, California

The Bascom Atrium Series Pop-Up, The Bascom, Highlands, North Carolina

Transformation, The Hudgens Center for Art and Learning, Duluth, Georgia

Fantastic Fibers, Yeiser Art Center, Paducah Kentucky

Color of Water, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Sebastopol, California

Yarn, Rope, String, New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, Massachusetts

2022

unCommon Threads, Carlisle Arts Learning Center, Carlisle, PA

Constructed Visions IV, St. Louis Artists’ Guild, St. Louis, Missouri

State of the Art 2022, Studio Montclair Leach Gallery, Montclair, New Jersey

SKYLINE, Passaic County Arts Center, Hawthorne, New Jersey

2022 Craft Biennial, Fuller Craft Museum, Stockton Massachusetts

2021

Absolute Abstraction, Studio Montclair, Montclair, New Jersey

2020

Yarn, Rope, String, Appalachian Center for Craft, Smithville, Tennessee

My artwork is rooted in textile craft tradition and driven by a desire to explore color, material and the tangible interplay of these elements. I find a constant source of inspiration in nature and in the mingling of atmosphere, landscape, light and color. I’m drawn to pursue transient moments that try to elude capture. Sunlight on water or the shifting of shadows are traced and abstracted down into their most essential elements of line, form and color. As I work I’m compelled to seek out new connections, each piece informing and sparking ideas for the next.

I often think of my pieces as woven paintings that are built thread by thread. In this blend of fine art and weaving, the surface of the artwork becomes something that is carefully crafted on a structural level. Luminous dimension is created by layering yarns that merge and blend with hand painted fields of color. The tactile surface becomes a plane where colors cross and blend. Intersecting yarns form points of color that vibrate against each other and enhance the intensity of their neighbors, much like pointillism. From a distance the viewer’s eye blends individual colors, but up close the yarns give up their detail and offer a different experience of the piece.

Hand weaving is a slow and methodical process. Before any weaving starts, the yarns are wound into groups of the same length. These groups are then hand painted with dye to form the foundation of the vertical color variations in each piece. Yarns are carefully counted and threaded onto the loom forming the warp or vertical yarns. During the weaving process order is built with each interwoven end. The structure of the woven grid organizes and balances hand-painted fields of color formed by gradients painted into the warp and weft. There is a great duality in the process. Order versus chaos, but less like chaos and more like serendipity. Hand dyeing helps to cultivate chance outcomes. Weaving is such a planned craft by nature and hand dyeing helps to bring balance. It allows the process to feel more free and uncontrolled, so that when the final cloth is unrolled from the loom, there is always something new to be discovered.

CONTACT

For questions and commission inquires email: jessiebloomstudio@gmail.com

Instagram: @jessiebloomstudio