ARTISTS & ARTISANS 104 aphrochic
“Here,” is New York, where the Portau-Prince native moved when she was just 9 years old, following the loss of her father. Arriving in winter, the cold, the chaos of the trip and the sudden need to learn English were all obstacles to overcome, but they weren’t her biggest problem. “My first meal wasn't very good at all,” she laughs, recalling a dish of rice and green beans. “And I remember the beans were kind of like sweet, and I'm like, “Beans are not supposed to taste like this.” Her first encounter with New York’s Chinese food didn’t go much better. The ribs were even sweeter than the beans. “For Haitians, meat is not supposed to be sweet,” she remarks. “Ever. So food wasn't really good for me until my mom started cooking.” Though the cuisine was challenging, much of the rest of life flowed more naturally. “I picked up English really quickly,” she shrugs. “I guess when you're nine you just kind of pick up things fast,” though in the process she lost her hold on French. A model student, Jessica found she had the same quick facility with a number of other subjects, especially art. “My teachers loved me,” she says, “And I was really passionate about all the art classes that I was taking.” When she wasn’t in art class, she was still creating, doodling in books or sketching tattoos for friends at lunch. Art was calling her, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to answer. “I think I may have been, happier when I was just doing art, and not thinking about what an artist is,” she muses. “I think you're just more free that way, freer to just kind of explore and play. When the moment comes where you start thinking, ‘Oh, man, like, I'm an artist now, with like, the capital A, I think it can create a lot of stress.” Also at work were familiar tropes about what was and wasn’t possible for a girl from Haiti — warnings that came from within as well as without. “Coming from my background it wasn't something that I could imagine myself doing,” the artist confesses. “So for a long time, while I realized that I was really passionate about this, I was getting to that age where you had to pick a career and I was like, ‘I can't choose this. I can't be the artist with the capital A.’” Yet after a brief detour into culinary arts, Jessica relented to herself, applying and gaining acceptance to the Parsons School of Design at The New School. At Parson’s, the fascination with painting and drawing that captivated Jessica in high school, gave way to a new passion: sculpting. “I love working with my hands,” she explains. “I used to draw the figure and my next interest was sculpting the figure. Working in 3D was just the next step for me.” But learning the techniques of a sculptor was only the first step. A larger question was forming, waiting to be asked. As she immersed herself in the techniques of the artist, Jessica naturally became equally steeped in the aesthetic of her school, and the Eurocentric subtext that accompanied it. It was a process that she can only see clearly in retrospect. “I didn't even think about it,” she laments. “I just accepted it. Everything was looked at and judged and critiqued through the lens of European design and art.” As her education became her aesthetic, it colored not only in what she created, but how she saw the creations of others. “That's the lens that I began to see through, to judge good work. I would find myself thinking, “Oh, this isn't as sophisticated,’ when something wasn’t in the Eurocentric type of design.” Looking back now, she realizes how complete the process had been, and how early it started. “Right away, I guess I was beginning to be brainwashed. And I was just the good student who saw, listened, interpreted a lot of those ideas, and began to embed them in my work as my own.” issue eleven 105