{"id":8710,"date":"2021-01-28T16:35:16","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T16:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/media-archive.blackartinamerica.com\/?p=8710"},"modified":"2021-01-29T09:43:39","modified_gmt":"2021-01-29T09:43:39","slug":"tinkering-with-the-source-the-work-of-martha-jackson-jarvis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earthexhibitions.org\/media-archive\/?p=8710","title":{"rendered":"Tinkering with the Source: The Work of Martha Jackson Jarvis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tinkering with the Source: The Work of Martha Jackson Jarvis<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Shantay Robinson\u00a0<\/span><\/pre>\n
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Washington D.C. based visual artist Martha Jackson Jarvis has a long memory. Living with her grandparents<\/span> in<\/span> rural Virginia before moving to Philadelphia with her sister and, later, attending Howard University, Jackson Jarvis\u2019 memory traces a narrative illustrating success as an artist despite scarcity in resources.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
On her grandfather\u2019s farm, she remembers going to the spring to fetch water and, later on, observing her grandfather and uncle dig a well. \u201cI remember watching them go deeper and deeper and then it was a black hole and suddenly there was water that appeared at the bottom of that hole. I\u2019ll never forget that. And it just told me the endless possibility of things that seem solid and dead and not present, are ever present.\u201d Being from the country and moving to the city of Philadelphia, Jackson Jarvis says, was like she had \u201cdied and gone to hell.\u201d Coming from a town where half of the residents were relatives, Philadelphia taught her to be tough, observant, and stand her own ground. The blessing of the city was that her mother made sure she and her sister experienced the museum, theatre, and symphony. Though she moved away from her grandfather\u2019s farm, Jackson Jarvis remembered how he could go into the back shed with his tools and build anything.\u00a0 \u201cI thought whatever he wanted, he could go in that shed and come out and be tinkering. He\u2019d come out with whatever was necessary. And I loved that.\u201d This memory may have guided Jackson Jarvis on her life\u2019s course as an artist.<\/span><\/p>\n
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Martha Jackson Jarvis, Point of Entry Notes From the James River<\/p><\/div>\n
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Martha Jackson Jarvis, Ancestor’s Bones<\/p><\/div>\n
Jackson Jarvis still lives by her grandfather\u2019s model and believes that there\u2019s a way to create whatever is necessary. Being an artist affords her that ability. \u201cI like the freedom of being an artist. And what is that freedom? That freedom is being able to think and imagine and investigate anything.\u201d She believes there are no boundaries to possibilities as an artist and there is a creative abundance of the things that are available.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
In 1970, she enrolled in Howard University\u2019s art department where her professors and guest lecturers were notable Black artists like Lois Mailou Jones, Jeff Donaldson, Elizabeth Catlett, Hughie Lee Smith, and Charles White. Being at Howard was the first time Jackson Jarvis was able to gather with Black creatives from all over the world. The art professors at Howard encouraged their students that art could be their life\u2019s work. Jackson Jarvis was particularly influenced by Lois Mailou Jones. \u201cSo, Lois Mailou Jones, for me, was really paramount because in the mix of all these male figures there at Howard, she stood out,\u201d recalls Jackson Jarvis. \u201cShe was tough. She was smart. She had travelled the world. And she had a savviness about her and toughness and at the same time, this elegance. And I loved her for that. And she was generous.\u201d Gaining insight from her professors at Howard that her work would be important, Jackson Jarvis took her work seriously.<\/span>
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Though she hated to leave Howard, Jackson Jarvis would transfer to Tyler School of Art at Temple University back in Philadelphia for the access to technology she didn\u2019t have at Howard. Tyler\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
was isolating for her. There were few artists of color. It was rigorous and artists from all over the world would lecture there. But she admits that, culturally, it was like a desert, so she taught at Ile Ife Black Humanitarian Center in the heart of North Philadelphia run by the Arthur Hall Afro American Dance Ensemble. Artists from New York, Chicago, and all over the world would come through Ile Ife. Jackson Jarvis created a cultural life separate from here academic life at Tyler.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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Martha Jackson Jarvis, Crossing Land<\/p><\/div>\n
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Martha Jackson Jarvis, Live At Montreux Sounds IV<\/p><\/div>\n
In 1975, her final year at Tyler, during one of her critiques her professor suggested she do something else. She says he told her, \u201cThe field is already flooded and no one\u2019s going to want the work that you\u2019re producing.\u201d But Jackson Jarvis didn\u2019t let his opinion deter her. She packed up her book and struck out to become a professional artist. She got a studio and worked every day trying to empty her head of all it was filled with from critiques and other voices. She worked for two years in her studio and, at the end of those years, she had a solo show at the African American Museum in Philadelphia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s something really paramount about the energy and the fearlessness that Black women have to operate under. You have to walk with a level of knowing and perceptions at all times,\u201d Jackson Jarvis reckons. \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019m endlessly impressed with women of color who have over the ages produced art and continue to produce in spite of the big recognition and all of those things.\u201d As a Black woman artist, Jackson Jarvis has had to be more diligent in her artmaking than, perhaps, some of her contemporaries. Mainstream art institutions are only now looking to place the art of Black artists in their collections for several reasons including, more Black curators, pressure from the public, and gaps in their collections\u2019 history.<\/span><\/p>\n
Jackson Jarvis is encouraged about the future of Black women artists gaining more acclaim and acquiring the respect they deserve. \u201cThe universe is opening up. The time is moving,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd the larger artworld pretends they\u2019re not looking that they are not seeing. They see. And they\u2019ve been looking so now they\u2019re scrambling to fill in the gaps. There are major gaps in their history and when I talk about the history of humanity, there are gaps in it. Big holes. And they\u2019re supposed to be scholars. So, now they\u2019re scrambling to fill these holes. And who fills them? Howardena Pindell or Betye Saar or Alma Thomas. You can\u2019t ignore that work.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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Martha Jackson Jarvis, Mill Stone<\/p><\/div>\n
Of this contemporary moment when Black artists are starting to fill the gaps in museum collections with their work, she offers, \u201cThere\u2019s enough work out there. Rich, beautiful work has been produced. It exists. They can\u2019t pretend that it doesn\u2019t exist anymore. That\u2019s not convenient anymore.\u201d Stories from artists working in previous generations tell that the excuse for Black artists not being included in prominent art collections would be there \u2018weren\u2019t any good Black artists to collect.\u2019 As Jackson Jarvis notes, this excuse is intolerable today, as there are a plethora of Black artists working with masterful skills that challenge the dominant artworld in aesthetic and meaning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
Jackson Jarvis is encouraged that there are so many young, gifted curators and writers working today to include the work of Black artists in the mainstream artworld. \u201cIt\u2019s open. It\u2019s up to us to create what the vision will be for art of the future and who\u2019s going to be recording the artists. Because, ultimately, we are telling a human story. It\u2019s broader than just an article in <\/span>The New York Times.<\/span><\/i> It\u2019s beyond that.\u201d Art adjacent professionals today are placing Black artists in the forefront of art institutions and requiring that there is representation in prominent art collections. But as Jackson Jarvis notes, this work is not only the doing of the current activists, but the work of generations before them. She cites Howardena Pindell whose activism, she acknowledges, practically started the work of talking about inclusion of Black women artists in the mainstream artworld. Jackson Jarvis states, \u201cThis moment isn\u2019t just now. That\u2019s what we have to see. We have to look broadly at time and space. This is residual evidence of work these people before us have laid.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n
Her recent work on her ancestor, Luke Valentine, speaks to the abundant freedom of her artistry and the ancestral lineage she refers to as important. Consistently, Jackson Jarvis is working on public art with her daughter as she draws from her ancestral lineage while simultaneously promoting her own matriarchal lineage. The mother of four recognizes the very important role that motherhood has played in her life as an artist. \u201cIt brings a level of knowing about preparation and care that I don\u2019t think I can imagine if I didn\u2019t have the experience of being a mother, of knowing how to first of all experience giving part of yourself to others completely. I think that\u2019s something that comes about from that matriarchal thing that happens.\u201d She draws from her role as a mother to inspire her work, as well as her rich family history.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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Martha Jackson Jarvis, Patterns<\/p><\/div>\n
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Martha Jackson Jarvis, Techno 368<\/p><\/div>\n
\u201cMy work really talks about space. I\u2019m concerned with scale. What does that mean? Our bodies the space that we claim on this earth. As a sculptor, I\u2019m always evaluating that.\u201d Jackson Jarvis\u2019 sculptures have been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world including Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Galerie Myrtis, Baltimore, Maryland; African American Museum Dallas, Texas; Philadelphia African American Historical Museum; and Fernbank Museum of National History, Atlanta, GA. Her public art commissions include the Washington Metro Transit Authority, Anacostia Station, New York Transit Authority, Mount Vernon, and Prince George\u2019s County Courthouse in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n
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\"\"SHANTAY ROBINSON<\/b> was a participant in the inaugural class of <\/span>Burnaway<\/span><\/i> Magazine\u2019s<\/span> Art Writers Mentorship Program, a fellow in Duke University\u2019s Center for Documentary Studies Digital Publishing Project<\/span> Editorial Fellowship and was chosen for the CUE Art Foundation\u2019s Art Critic Mentoring program. In addition to writing for <\/span>Black Art in America<\/span><\/i>, she has written for <\/span>Washington City Paper,<\/span><\/i> Arts ATL<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Nashville <\/span><\/i>Scene, <\/span>ARTS.BLACK<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>AFROPUNK<\/span><\/i>, <\/span>Sugarcane Magazine,<\/span><\/i> Number, Inc<\/span><\/i>., and <\/span>International Review of African American Art.<\/span><\/i> She also published a scholarly article in <\/span>Teaching Artist Journal. <\/span><\/i>She presented papers about art and education at SCAD\u2019s (Savannah College of Art and Design) Symposium on Art and Fashion, Georgia State University\u2019s New Voices Graduate Student Conference, Georgia State University\u2019s Glorious Hair and Academic Identities Conference, Northeast Modern Languages Association Conference, Mason Graduate Interdisciplinary Conference, and New York African Studies Association Conference. In 2019, she sat on a panel at Prizm Art Fair during Miami Art Week. In 2020, she served as visual arts judge in Shreveport Regional Council\u2019s Critical Mass 8 Art Competition.<\/span><\/p>\n
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