about…

Jess has been creating art since very early childhood, and has never lost interest in their visual practice. Over the years they’ve always drawn and painted, but also worked in clay, natural dyes and other textile pursuits, performance art (including queer experimental burlesque), and printmaking. After having discovered DIY culture and zines, they began their work with the plant community. They began studying and sharing the magic of herbs with their community in the early 2000s and has continued to do so ever since. To earn a living, they have dabbled in and mixed together all kinds of work. Organic vegetable farming, restaurant work, house painting, house cleaning, “punk hairstylist”, goat milking, adult store clerk, vintage clothing window display designer and shop girl, childcare, birth doula, cocktail waiter and ad-hoc bouncer at a gay bar, bike shop barista, and substitute teacher have all been roles that put dinner on the table (in various combinations at various times). All this because they have a hard time asking for “real money” for art or herbal medicine. These things are like food, they are a human right.

They are a single parent, raising their son with an emphasis on teaching him about the natural world, how to interpret art for himself, and how to be a thinking, feeling, thoughtful person. Radical parenthood has become their greatest life’s work, filling them with hope and driving them to be better in all else they do.

Jess has studied with Samantha Zipporah, the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine, has completed the Wild Gather Seeds of Herbalism program, and many more herbalists, artists and others. They are now on a new adventure with formal academia, studying art.