We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jessica Wood a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

I’m genuinely excited to share my newest series of paintings, titled Art Therapy. This collection is deeply personal, as it’s my way of giving a voice to the trauma and pain I’ve endured. I’ve faced overwhelming anxiety and crippling depression, much of which stems from living with a disability, battling PCOS and the surgeries that accompany it, and enduring both mental and physical abuse. Through this series, I’m confronting my pain and trauma head-on in hopes of finally finding healing. My sincere wish is that these works will inspire others to open up about their own past traumas and begin their journey toward healing as well.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My story starts in Stokes County, North Carolina. I grew up right between Hanging Rock and Pilot Mountain State Parks. Natural beauty was all around me. My grandmother lived right across the road from me and one of my favorite things growing up was running barefoot as hard as I could to her house. The grass under my feet and the exhilaration of it all is something that I’ll never forget. I used to go to my grandmother‘s house to sit and talk to her and she would always have something cooked for me to eat. A lot of the times when ball practice was over after school, I would go to her house and eat with her and then come back home and eat with my nuclear family. She was definitely someone that I looked up to and wanted to be like. She made everyone feel at home and loved. One of my grandmother‘s favorite things was her flower garden. Her whole yard would be full of flowers each year. When I was really small, I would chase the monarch butterflies from Azalea Bush to Azalea Bush. My sister and I would play under her quilts that she had framed up in her back room so that she could work on it a little at a time. She hand sewed the toppers to all of her quilts. When I got a little bit older, I would go to her house and she would show me how to make pillows and sew my own things. Grandma would pick flowers from her own yard and put them on the table on her porch or on her kitchen table. She showed me how to make my own flower vases as well. I loved how something so simple could make her so happy. This is a really big inspiration for my work, because I want to pass that happiness on to other people.

I went to Western Carolina University to get my Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree. My second semester there, I ended up getting pregnant with my daughter. Her father and I got married, took a semester off to have our daughter, and then we found a little hole in the wall duplex that was walkable to campus and we went back to finish out our undergraduate programs. I was one of the first people in my family to have the opportunity to go to college, so I wasn’t going to mess that up. I also wanted to show my daughter that women are capable of hard things. When I wasn’t in classes, you could find my daughter and I in the ceramic studio. These are some of my best memories. Then it seemed so hard, but I never had a doubt that we would make it through. I had aspirations of being a Ceramic Artist. I became obsessed with learning everything I could about every medium that I could fit into my schedule. I took independent studies in ceramics during the summers so that I could use the studio all summer long to hone in my craft. We never took a break, we took all the classes that we could even during the summers so that we could stay on course. My senior year I won lots of accolades for my work and I ended up graduating C*m Laude with my Bachelors of Fine Arts degree. I was so proud that I was able to graduate with my daughter by my side.

After college, I spent a lot of years trying to make a loveless marriage work and fit in where I didn’t fit in so I could be a “good” mom for my daughter. I have since learned that being myself and being strong for her was way more important and when she saw me happy and confident, it made her happy and confident; lessons learned. During this time I made artwork on the side, but I wasn’t doing it professionally. I taught Art for a year in public schools. Then I tried my hand at Real Estate. Neither of these opportunities felt right to me. I am grateful for those years though, because they taught me a lot about people and Real Estate taught me a lot about business. I made quilts for my daughter’s dance friends and jewelry on the side, but it wasn’t possible for me to have kiln so I could do my ceramic work. I felt like since I couldn’t work in ceramics, I couldn’t be a real Artist because that was what I was trained to do.

Between 2019 and 2020 I went through several things that really broke me as a person. I went through a hurtful divorce, where I was blindsided by just how truly awful people can be, I was raped, my PCOS symptoms were getting worse, I started having more issues with my back due to my scoliosis and I had to start using a wheelchair and cane for distance, my grandmother‘s health started to decline and she died in 2020, and then Covid happened. Thankfully I met my current spouse during that time. He really helped me through a lot that I was going through and I helped him through things that he was going through. We were kindred spirits that found each other at the perfect moment. He helped me to find my joy again. While we were quarantining for Covid, he gave me the confidence to start using my creative abilities again. He gave me the confidence to just be myself.

I feverishly started to paint. It was a way for me to get me inner creative voice out, without having to have a kiln or wheel. I have always been in love with color and I could use colors that weren’t achievable with ceramics. Painting flowers gave me a way to connect with my grandmother and that feeling of security and “home” that I desperately needed at this time in my life. I was having surgery after surgery due to my POCS. I could hardly walk between the surgeries and the effects that they had on my back. I spent a few years in “my chair” just painting away. This is how I developed my current style of painting. If I was going to have to sit in my chair to heal, I was going to take advantage of every minute of it painting. I used dots, pattern, and color to create dreamy florals for my Floral Still Life Series of mixed media paintings. It was just what I needed to combat the severe anxiety and depression that came along with everything that was going on in my life as well as take my mind off of the pain. I’m still working everyday to make my body stronger and some days are better than others. If I have a day where I am up and moving, I will have days after that where I can’t move. I try to just take advantage of the good days for taking artwork to galleries, being with my family, etc. The days I hurt and don’t have mobility make me thankful for the ones that I do have.

I started painting to help me get through all of the things that were giving me severe anxiety and depression, but I soon learned that my artwork could inspire, bring joy, and help other people through things that they were going through. I was getting message after message on my new Instagram account that I had created for my artwork telling me how much my work had meant to them and helped them through what they were going through. “How amazing“, I thought! It makes me so happy making other people happy. I feverishly started making Artwork because it was making me feel better and the kind messages that I was getting from other people telling me how my work had impacted them, would bring me joy like I had never felt before. It has been a big driving force in my work. I started painting flowers because they meant so much to me and reminded me of my childhood, but I continue to paint flowers because I see how much happiness they can bring to other peoples lives.

Everyday is painful, but it helps me to remember that other people are hurting and going through things too. Just as I needed my Artwork to heal, I know from countless messages that it helps others to heal as well. I just want to bring a little happy into this world.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

A central goal of my work is healing. Whether it’s for myself or others, the essence of my art always returns to the theme of healing.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative, for me, is the ability to live a life that is true and honest to myself. I no longer struggle to be what others expect me to be. Each day, I wake up and engage in work that nurtures my mind, body, and soul. I’m doing work that feels deeply important to me, and I’m confident that when I look back on my life, I’ll be happy with the legacy I’ve created.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.jessicawoodartist.com
• Instagram: @jessicawoodartist
• Facebook: @jessicawoodart
• Other: Pinterest: @jessicawoodartist

  Threads: @jessicawoodartist

Image Credits

Jessica Wood, Nathan Waggoner