Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Caitlin “CJ” Jones-Basler. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Caitlin “CJ”, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I guess this is a good place to start, because originally I was on the path to becoming an Anthropologist with a focus on culture and cultural diffusion before switching my major in college to Studio Art. I have always loved drawing, I grew up in a rural area of northern California. A “more cows than people” kinda place. I Loved horses and started working at the age of 13 at a nearby stables to help pay for my own horse’s board and feed. I loved to draw the horses. Being far away from people I had a lot of time for drawing, painting and reading. Often drawing or reading while at the stables waiting for a ride back home before I could drive. This may also be why I found a love for the study of human cultures around the world, I could read books about places really different from where I grew up and I wanted to learn more. When the time came to decide what to study in college, as much as I loved Art, I chose a path into the social sciences believing it was the wiser career choice; more lucrative financially than trying to become an artist. My family would have supported me either way, though. I completed my associates degree with emphasis in cultural anthropology before getting accepted into UC Davis, CA to continue my studies.
At the time, I was working in Berkeley as a waitress at Zachary’s Pizza and riding my bike or walking everywhere, but I kept having shortness of breath, dizzy spells and sleeping way too much. I just couldn’t get my body to keep up with myself. I saw doctors, but nothing was working. After almost a year of misdiagnosis, and being convinced by physicians that I was self-inducing my own illness, a female nurse practitioner evaluated me and discovered that I had been developing Lymphoma (a blood cancer) that was constricting my lungs and creating the chronic fatigue symptoms.
I had to get a deferment from UC Davis for a year, postponing my transfer while I received chemotherapy and a bone-marrow transplant in hopes of survival.
When you are dying, your awareness of who you are, what you want and what is most important to you become hyper-focused. I started to realize that money didn’t drive me, that the main reason I didn’t pursue a degree in Art was because I had a fear of not being able to support myself with my Art. When I stripped the money away from the equation, I knew that if I survived my battle with Lymphoma I wanted to change my major and study the Arts. So, I did. Lots of other events followed this choice. Like a chain reaction, they eventually found me doing what I do today. I teach ceramics, but I’ve taught painting and drawing classes, sculpture classes, etc. I really hope that I can encourage other young artists to realize their potential and ignore the pressures of a capitalist society to drive their choices towards “money making” jobs over following their passions.
Caitlin “CJ”, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Eventually, I was able to graduate UC Davis with a double major in Art History and Studio Art. I had started classes in Figure Drawing and Oil Painting, but by the end of my undergraduate studies I had fallen in love with Sculpture. Lucy Puls, Robin Hill, Dave Hollowell and Tom Bills helped fuel my exploration of new and different materials. I used my work to self-therapize some left-over feelings of trauma from my cancer. I had a little survivor’s’ guilt and a lot of hesitations around making long-term connections with my peers. I felt pretty isolated from the general populace of college students. Not that I didn’t make friends, but I was really selective of where to place my time. Time felt very precious, I didn’t want to waste it with the second chance I got. My Art was hugely cathartic for me. Internalized narratives were able to create form in various oil paintings and sculptures. I was given a huge gift to work with uncomfortable thoughts in a safe, inclusive space with other young artists. One of my most favorite pieces is my first oil painting, called “Moon Face.” It’s the first moon face of many. A female figure, bone white with arms stretched up over head to create branches that call to similar celtic knots seen in the tree of life. The face floats within the frame of the arms, detached from the shoulders with no neck, eyes closed, peaceful despite the emaciated form of her rib cage and stretched belly.
The name “moon face” was a nickname my mom would call all cancer patients in the BMT unit. The point of getting a Bone Marrow Transplant is to kill your bodies white blood cell production, deep within the bone marrow. You are very fragile in this stage of treatment and must be secluded in a sterile environment while you are neutropenic. A common cold can kill you easily with no white blood cells to fight infection. I couldn’t even brush my teeth in case the bristles caused my gums to open and bleed and bacteria overtake my immune system. BMT patients spend and average of 3 months in their room, some much longer. When you are receiving this much chemotherapy, you are on loads of steroids to help with pain, inflammation and other side effects. So, patients are quite pale, bald, no eyelashes or eyebrows and bloated from the steroids. We really did look like little moon faced people from another planet, or from the moon itself. I liked the nickname, it made me feel like a child of the moon, that this was just a phase like the phases of the moon. That a moon-faced goddess was with us as we faced our mortalities. It was an odd little narrative I put to the nickname and then began to draw and paint it.
It’s been some 15 years now, and Moon Face has evolved a lot since that first oil painting with the tree branches from the tree of life. The tree of life, with similar branches seen in Moon Face is also something I draw a lot still. My younger sister had asked me to draw my own version of the tree of life while I was in the BMT unit receiving chemotherapy. The idea was that the drawing would become a memorial tattoo if I lost my battle to my cancer, or we would get it together to celebrate my survival. Obviously, I survived and now all the women closest to me in my family have my drawing of the tree of life tattooed.
Now, when I create pottery, I draw my ‘Moon Phace’ and my version of the ‘Tree of Life’ on my ceramics. These two symbolic drawings persist as I evolve my practice into ceramics/pottery and ceramic sculpture.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Great question, and I will answer from the point of view of an Educator. We all know the idea that public may view a work of Art in a Museum or Gallery and say “I can do that.” …and I’ve always loved the response, “but you didn’t.” I think, like most things, you just don’t know how nuanced, intricate or difficult something is until you try it yourself. I really try not to criticize the difficulties that others may have. My trauma is not more or less than anyone else’s’ experiences of trauma. My ability to make Artwork is not better or more difficult to do than any other artists. My job is hard, but everyone’s job is hard in it’s own way.
I think the best way societies can best support artists is to try to make art! A deeper appreciation for the nuanced abilities that the artist is able to do will be better understood. High School students must take one VAPA (Visual and Performing Art) class in order to fulfill graduation requirements. I cannot count how many students have enrolled into my ceramics classes because they think it is an “easy A,” and even education professionals see my work as just teaching “play-doh” class. When you get your hands on the material there are so many things that are happening with your body and brain that maybe haven’t been developed yet. Fine-motor skills need to be operating at a level that allows muscle memory to take over and the creative brain be able to manipulate and think beyond the material in order to produce a work of art in ceramics. Students are faced with a big learning curve of fine-motor skill development for assessing weight, pressure, texture and use of tools to create their assignments. It is very typical to hear from my students “this is hard… how did you do that?… why isn’t it working?” and the realization that what an artist does comes from sustained efforts, a drive to fulfill a creative brain and lots, and lots of practice.
Students look at pinterest, etsy and google images for inspiration and I constantly have to remind them that it takes time to be able to work at the level they are seeing online or on their social media. At the end of the year, they have a great appreciation for work they see being sold by artists because they know the material costs, the difference in high-quality one-of-a-kind work and mass produced kitsch, plus (of course) the time and effort the artist applies to their craft to get to a place where they can produce enough work to sell.
I encourage people who are not working in the Arts to take a community class and try working on a pottery wheel, do a wine-and paint night and try to paint a landscape, try jewelry making or figure drawing or photography. One, because it’s so good for our humanity to be creative and create!- but, two, because society needs to be aware of the work that goes into a unique piece of art that will not be mass produced or replicated. That buying art from an artist is taking hours of trial and error and narratives of that artists’ life with them into their own home to own.
Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
Haha, this is hard to admit, since I now teach beginning and advanced ceramics. I deeply regret not ever taking a ceramics class while attending UC Davis. Annabeth Rosen runs the ceramics program there and I had a mis-conception of ceramics as a young artist. I had it in my head that art, with a capital “A” was not the ceramics that my grandma would do at her local community studio. She would buy pre-made, mass produced ceramic pieces that were cast and bisque fired then glaze them in the studio and gift them every christmas. Honestly, my grandma was really cool in the fact that she would just go out and try anything and everything and somehow found a little community studio to learn how to glaze at. However, it left an impression on my silly young-self that if I were going to be an artist, capitol “A” Artist- I needed to focus on the type of Art I saw in the MOMA or Juxtapoz magazine while attending UC Davis. It wasn’t until I was thirty that I found ceramics with Yoshio Taylor and have been madly in love with the medium ever since!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cjones88.weebly.com
- Instagram: Moon Phace Art
Image Credits
Cliff Collins (Black and White Photo)