Jay’s Safe Space

Dialogue between B[S]R resident, Jay Katelansky, and Lark Eaglin

LE: In your artistic practice, you raise questions about safety. What does the concept of safety mean to you, and how do you approach it in your work? 

JK: That's the thing I think I'm still exploring what safety means to me, which is why I'm making the work as an exploration. Safety for me or what makes me feel safe, is just being able to be, without being on guard. Which is very hard in the world. 

Like I feel the most safe when I'm in my home around all of my things and the things that make me feel good. I have a dog, my partner. Those things make me feel safe. But yeah, I mean, safety is just something that I've been exploring. 

Like, what is it? What does it mean? What does safety feel like for other people? I think a lot about what it's like to be a Black American and think, you know, safety is so precarious. We walk out the door and we're just, like, bombarded with the fact that it's not safe.

You know, we're just seeing you can't knock on the wrong door. You can't, you know, drive into the wrong driveway. You can't, I don't know, just walk down the street. Yeah, I feel like we're constantly having to be on guard. And then I just wonder what it's like for other people who don't have to think about that. 

And then as a queer black person, it just adds another layer of not feeling safe in my environment 98% of the time. 

LE: And when you're creating, is it an emotional experience that you're having, or are you working to expose that reality? How do you work through the emotions of that while also still trying to present the truth? 

JK:  I think I try to add an element of joy in the work because if I only think about the emotional effects of not feeling safe, it's really hard to create work because then you end up in a hole. Basically, you just kind of get depressed within it. So, I mean, I try to think about things that make me feel safe or things that would make me feel like a breath of relief if I saw it in a space. 

So that's sort of how I make things. I want to make things that, not necessarily always make people feel good, but I think I try to make pieces and work that doesn't just sit in kind of the sadness of how I feel about not feeling safe. 

LE: Can you elaborate on the significance of using textile and beadwork as mediums in your art? Like, how do these things contribute to this exposure? 

JK: So I just started. This is the work that I'm making for this residency. It’s the first work that I've ever done any kind of beading? I like textiles, I've always loved textiles since forever, but I really don't know how to sew. It's something that I want to learn, but I really like the tactileness of textiles. 

So over the pandemic I learned how to tuft. Which is the process of basically rug making. Instead of making rugs, I made textile work with phrases and words. So yeah, I mean, this is a whole new game because I'm using outsourced jacquard weaving that I'm beading on. 

So I like to do things that are meditative. I have OCD, so things that I can do on repetition really helps me. In my art practice, it kind of keeps me grounded. Everything I normally do is repetitive. So the screen printing I really like because it's the same motion over and over again. 

Tufting, you kind of just do the same motion over and over again. And the same thing with beading. It's just hours and hours of meditative beading. Which makes me feel safe. 

So I think, you know, I gravitate towards the things that take some time; that like you can kind of just sit in your thoughts and just keep doing without really having to like, think about it. 

LE: I was really excited when I had the chance to see what you were working on for your upcoming exhibition. You know, the weight of the material made me think of how traditionally African Americans use textiles to tell stories of our trauma and of our pain, but also of like our history and our strength. 

And so I really liked the phrase that you had on the textile. I was really, really moved by that because it reminded me of that kind of quilting. It's emotional and it can get really deep, this process of quilting over time within the diaspora in the Americas. 

JK: Yeah, I mean, I absolutely love quilting it. I have so many things that I want to learn how to do. I would love to learn how to quilt, but yeah, the phrases on the pieces that I'm working on are lyrics from Gloria Gaynor's “I Will Survive” song. I started focusing on those lyrics, because just with the pandemic and just with the isolation and everything, you know, just watching so many people, especially brown and black people die because of this virus, it was really isolating. And I mean, I still wear my mask everywhere. I still, you know, work remote. Up until very recently I haven't really been outside. 

The words, even though it's a break up song, it also then became like an anthem for people with AIDS and HIV. And I think you know, it still relates sort of what we all went through in the pandemic and watching people die and especially people who are minorities die at a faster rate and not getting care. It made me think of that and I've just been thinking about those lyrics a lot. I just really wanted to make work isolating the lyrics so that you can see them in a new context and not just like in a heartbreak song. 

LE: How do you hope your art challenges or disrupts conventional narratives around safety and navigation of space? 

JK: With my work I hope to  create a respite for black people, especially black queer people, versus like disrupt. I think I'm less focused on having white people or other people understand or question this idea of safety or how black bodies are not safe. Whereas I much rather focus on creating pieces that mainly call attention to black people. 

I don't know if I'm necessarily trying to disrupt anything. I think I'm just trying to create pieces that we see ourselves in. And less disrupt or challenge. I think when I was younger and I was first making art, I was very into activism art. Sort of like responding to every single terrible thing that would happen with, like, a more action based, kind of like demanding phrases and stuff. 

And as I’ve gotten older, I feel like I've taken a quieter approach and I'm not really trying to address white people who create this unsafe environment for people. So yeah, just more so trying to relate more to my experience and to the experience of my community. 

LE: Can you tell us a bit about your background and how you got started in textile art? 

JK: I went to undergrad for 2D. So, I just really focused on painting while I was an undergrad, and then I went straight from undergrad to grad school, and I also went into the painting department. 

I've always been interested in textiles. Some of the other schools I had applied to for grad school that I got into, but I still ended up choosing Wisconsin for painting. One of the schools I wanted to go to was in Chicago and they had a multimedia program, but it was heavy on textiles and new media. And I really wanted to do that program, but Wisconsin offered me a better ride, so I went there instead. But while I was there, I took a printing on textiles class with Professor Jennifer Angus. I really got to kind of start playing with like what it would look like if I like printed on textiles and what I could do with that. 

And then I just stopped working in textiles after I left school just because of access and not having certain materials. It’s expensive and because I don't know how to sew, there's a lot of work around that. 

But then, during the pandemic, I started seeing all these people tufting on TikTok and I was just like “What is this medium? I want to do this. I don't want to make rugs though. So, what could I do with this?” And then I was like “Oh, you can just make art! You just make soft art.” 

So I started making textile pieces over the pandemic using the tufting gun. I started making all these text pieces with wool yarn. I just got really into that. And then from there I started to outsource the Jaccard weaving. 

I was originally going to do this work in Tufting, but I got diagnosed with a chronic pain disease a couple months ago and I wasn't able to use my arms for like a whole month. I couldn't lift them or move them. I didn't understand why, so I decided to switch over to this process because I thought it would be less work for my arms and it would cause me less pain. 

LE: Thank you for sharing that. How are you with that? Like is it kind of freeing that even though you have this one experience, you've learned this new medium? How do you navigate through that? 

JK: Yeah, I mean, because it's so new, I'm happy that I found this medium to work around because I'm still able to convey sort of what I want to convey using textiles without having to put so much labor on to my body. It's a little disheartening sometimes. I'm still getting used to it. I'm still trying to figure out how much my body can take before it gives up on me. So I've just been taking it slow and just hoping that this new way of working adds a little bit more ease into my practice. 

LE: Yeah, I'm really intrigued with how we, specifically black women, go through so much individually and then as a collective. I feel like there's so much pain and trauma in the ether and sometimes some of us are just a lot more sensitive to that. 

I say that because last year my mom got really sick and couldn't do anything for a while but then she started painting and it was the first time that she ever had time to paint. So, she starts to realize, like, “Oh, I'm good at this!” 

So, I think it's really beautiful how we always find a way to express ourselves and heal ourselves through our capacity to create. I just wanted to share that with you because I think it's really beautiful. 

JK: No, that's very beautiful. I think artists are just incredible beings. And I think we're constantly just trying to figure out, you know, different ways of making. You know, as you get older, things come up and I just feel like there's just all these ways the artists just, you know, still figure out how to paint. 

Like I think about Frida and how she created the mechanisms to be able to paint through her pain. And you know, it was her life and she just figured out a way to do it when she was unable to do it the way that she was used to doing it. 

LE: How do you see your work evolving overtime? Are there any new techniques or materials you’re excited to explore in your textile art? 

JK: I think I'm going to continue outsourcing the Jacquard weaving and doing bead work. I think I'm very excited about this new method. I’m excited to see all the ways in which I can, you know, make work using these materials, since these are the first three pieces that I'm ever doing this way. I have like no idea exactly what it's going to look like when I finish. If it's going to look the way I envisioned it. I'm on a very tight deadline. I really only have like another 12 days to finish everything. So, I think I have it. 

So, I'm really excited to see the finishing of these pieces and see what worked and what didn't work and hopefully make more work, you know, using these materials and figuring out different things to add to it. 

I mean the pieces have, you know, the outsourced Jacquard weaving, which I love. I wish I knew how to do it myself without having to outsource it. That's a whole field I'd have to spend many years in and probably a school to learn how to weave like that. But yeah, I'm just using a lot of things that I've used in prior work. I just really like shiny, celebratory things. Things that you'd see at birthday parties. I used a lot of confetti or mylar balloons and certain things like that in my previous work. So, I'm just revisiting those materials in this new body of work. I’m seeing how I can make new kinds of work using the same materials I'm normally drawn to. 

I’m excited for all the beadwork, all the sequins. I have some chiffon fabric in my studio that I'm going to be using. So yeah, I'm just really excited to be playing with all these new materials.

LE: Can you talk about how these materials promote joy and safety? What is it about the beads? Because I just love them.

JK: I think it all goes back to that Lucille Clifton poem where she says “Wont you celebrate with me” cause “everyday something has tried to kill me and has failed.” And it's like wow lets celebrate the fact that it hasn't. So I always think everything is really, really hard, but if you don't celebrate the small things, then you get overwhelmed with all the terrible big things. So I always like to add these elements of things that you would see at parties. 

You know, I had pieces before where I used those big mylar balloons. I feel like sequences are kind of like confetti, so all those things just bring me back to a semblance of joy and I think that then that helps me to not really sit in the sadness.

I've always been super emotional and I've always, you know, suffered with depression. And that's just always what I've been. But like there's still flickers of joy and moments of happiness, and I always just like to pull those in because I think those are really important.

LE:  I’m listening to you speak about your work and it sounds like you’re creating safe spaces everywhere you go.

JK:  I want everyone, especially my community, to have this sense of ease. I want us to be able to rest. I want us to be able to sleep, you know, I want all of these things for us.