Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Pascale Jarvis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Pascale, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?
The practice of block printmaking – a technique of printmaking that involves carving, usually by hand, custom stamps called “blocks” – came to me inadvertently as I attended art school to study creative writing. Taking an Introduction to Printmaking class to escape the monotony of the written page, the deeply physical, iterative nature of carving a block to print made my brain buzz – that is, until the critiques of my work by my classmates brought me quickly back to a harsher reality. Nonetheless, I kept finding ways to incorporate block printing classes into my writing curriculum despite receiving feedback from peers and professors that my compositions were lacking, that my carving skills weren’t quite up to par with everyone else, that I ought to focus on imagery besides plants. But their words posed a challenge: what would it take for me to get good, really technically good, at this thing I physically loved to do? The pandemic rolled in some years later, finding me furloughed from my job and with a bunch of clothes leftover at my house from a pre-pandemic clothing swap with some friends. With nothing but time on my hands and lots of fabric to print on, I discovered that the very elements that made me subpar at printing my blocks on paper actually made me good at printing on fabric. And now, nearly three years later, I’m able to rely on my block-printed garments for income. Looking back, there’s nothing I would change; the negative feedback was valuable data that made me a better artist, and the challenge it posed taught me to chase my own instincts. The most essential skill? Learning to hunt the thing that united my brain and body in an art form that makes my soul sing.
Pascale, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Hi! I’m Pascale Jarvis, a nonbinary (they/them/theirs pronouns, please), queer printmaker – and sometimes writer. I learned my craft, relief printing (also called block printing), while studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, honing it while farming/refurbishing an old farmhouse post-graduation. Through my business, raskl., I sell one-of-a-kind pieces of wearable art in the form of block printed garments. The garments themselves are generally gently used and carefully thrifted, and the imagery of my work centers around the plants and creatures I encounter locally, often while farming. The whimsy and careful visual grammar of my garments sets them visually apart from other artistically upcycled clothing; the physical strength it takes to print something fully by hand and the scrupulous tenacity I apply to my carving practice set me apart as an artist. I’m most proud of the way my art and business have connected me to my community – the way people resonate with my garments, the way wearing a beautifully-printed shirt can make someone smile so, so bright.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Learning how to be an artist as a queer person during the 2010s carried with it a myriad of implicit expectations about how one’s art “should” interact with their identity. While conceptual art, especially centered around the nuances of identity politics, is still one of favorite types of art to consume, I had to unlearn my own expectation about it being the only kind of art I could make. As a younger person, my relationship to my work crossed over the line into toxicity; I mined myself for my rawness, using my pain as the lead concept behind my work and placing all my self-value in my ability to do so. The kind of stress this manifested in my body led to a number of chronic pain diagnoses; I had to learn how to make art sustainably, how to draw inspiration from other sources – to let my joy be my guide rather than my pain.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
The best thing society can do for our communities – of all kinds! – is to slooooooooooow down! The pace of our current world creates conditions where convenience is top priority. When we, as individuals, are preoccupied with all the things we have to do in a given day, justifiably it becomes so difficult to attend to community care, to the well-being of our families, to engage in the self-care practices that allow ourselves to be our best versions. Attention is a resource that can feel scarce these days, as an artist looking for engagement on social media platforms and also more broadly, as a person interacting with others in society. Giving each other attention, care in the form of small kindnesses, helps us all learn to approach attention as something that can be abundant, that is abundant if we decide it is. When we stop to pay attention to each other, and I mean really try to see each other for who we are, we learn to be attentive to the thousands and thousands of ways there are to live beautifully in our world – the myriads of ways there are to exist in a body, to do important work for the community. Slowness can allow us to revel in the joy of the ordinary acts of creation that define our day-to-day – the act of creation that can be making a meal or cracking a joke with a stranger. When we’re taking care of each other and ourselves, we’re supporting artists and co-creating a thriving ecosystem.
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