Jess completes her first piece of work at the Jail.
The tragic tale of Selina Wadge has been depicted in this original artwork – Jess has spent many hours snuggled under the heat-lamp in the old key-room down in the Jail; sculpting with care, her vision of Selina’s story and subsequent crime she committed.
The image is full of symbolism specific to Selina; frogs and frog spawn, moths, baby bird skulls and prison mice.
“I drowned the child.
I put it in the water.
Lord deliver me from this miserable world.”
The idea is to make the viewer think about Selina’s crime and her guilt; the frogs are from the well, the spawn and bird skulls represent children. The moths are symbols of the spirit.
The wording is the actual words Selina spoke, and she holds in her hand her handkerchief, as recorded at her execution…
Jess talks us through her creative process -
“Each cutting starts off with a story. I usually select a phrase or an image to work with first, from this the rest of the cutting develops. The size of the cutting is really dependant on the space I have to work on – sometimes that comes down to putting tables together to give the most surface area.
I then draw a grid on the paper and sketch the words onto the grid; this helps me with letter size and spacing. Once the wording is in place, I draw in some of the larger elements, in the case of Selena Wadge, this was the mice, frogs and cobwebs. From here, I then draw in the connecting elements, foliage, frog spawn, smaller insects. It is this process that takes the most time.
Every part of the picture has to touch, mess that up and the whole thing will fall apart. To further complicate matters, the image is drawn in reverse so you have a clean image after the cutting when you turn the paper over. Writing letters backwards is never easy!
Once the outline is drawn, I start cutting. There is no real technique for this, I tend to start with the letters and outline and then work into middle. You can never be really certain how the image will work until the piece is finished.
Each picture is designed to tell the original story through image and wording, but they are also created to be visually intricate with hidden details and symbols. At the end of the day, they are about tales, and my intention is for each one to speak to the viewer in whatever way they want to see it and hopefully carry the story on.”
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