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

Joshua, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I find there is an immeasurable joy in being a creative/artist. I can’t really imagine what it would be like to work a regular job. I feel as though it’s one of those vocations that you need a few screws loose to pursue it wholeheartedly, I can certainly say I’ve fully embraced that.

When I was about 9 years old, I already knew that I wanted to be an artist. My days growing up were full of incessant drawing of whatever I wanted and wherever I wanted, as I got older the only real thing I could see myself doing was dedicating myself to taking all of my mental abstractions in visualizing them the best I could, and that’s quite odd.

There’s nothing normal about the things we’re trying to explore, and there’s nothing normal about the things we make.

We do have to be quite a bit weird to dedicate this much time to visualizing our thoughts, and that’s good. It’s good to embrace just how weird your vocation is and it’s good to embrace that you’re weird for pursuing it. We live on the edge in a lot of ways, but we also help make the world turn.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am Joshua Washington, but my artist name is Josh W. I’m a mixed-media artist based in Philadelphia.

Although I grew up in the arts, my entrance into the art world occurred in university. In 2022, I graduated from Parsons School of Design/The New School with a BFA in Illustration. I’m currently in the MFA program at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

My creative work is made up of 2d Painting & Collage on wood panels, Drawing with both inks and graphite, Printmaking (monotype & screen-printing) on paper and fabric, and 3d Installations / Amalgamations.

When it comes to my Amalgamations & Installations, I like to bring in both natural and artificial materials such as found objects, sticks/branches, leaves, physical collages, and fabrics.

For example, I often find it interesting to weave together various fabrics into egg tempera paintings on wood so that they become not separate from the paintings, but an extension of the painting itself. My installations are much like my amalgamations but stretched to large spaces with the desire for the viewer to feel like they’re entering a contemplative, shrine-like space.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

Well, I view my works as meditations or prayers that become their own distilled moments commenting on broader narratives.

The goal is really to visualize these meditations to explore, comment, and to get think about them in the context of various topics on religion/theology, black heritage, queer theory how these all intersect in contemporary white society.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I find that the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is the ability to grow and expand your practices in as many ways as you desire so long as you have the ambition for it.

As a young artist, My life experiences are ever-growing, and along with that so too is the ability to adapt my experiences into artistic form, and sometimes, new experiences and perspectives allow me to have greater reason to challenge myself in different art forms that I couldn’t have possibly have been interested in previously.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/josh_w_art/

Image Credits
*Jade Alderman/@jadestarlingart *Carlos Avendaño /@avendano_photography *Josephine Eke/@ekedesign