JADEPhoto Series
202310 Artworks

Jade is a spirit, a djinn who lives in Jaipur, if one could say she “lives” anywhere at all.

Jade is an agile shapeshifter, appearing and disappearing, morphing at will through time and space. Supernatural—exponentially natural; extraterrestrial—all possibilities of terrestrial existence all at once; from the outer galaxies to deserts, from the depths of the ocean to our pockets. Djinn live amongst us, but it is entirely their decision if we are to see them or not. They do not control humans; on the contrary, they create circumstances or opportunities, and leave us to make our own choices.

A flash, a shadow, something that sounds like a whisper but is more like the touch of a feather. Pay attention; these are the interstices of possibility. The individual works in JADE—Wink, Blink, Lotus, Clouds, Peak, Pick a pocket, Day dreamers, and In-direct gaze— follow the spirit as s/h/e morphs from one essence to another, inhabiting a stone or a tree, then s/h/e is a serpent, or the last rays of the sun falling on a mountaintop, and s/he is also the sense of warmth left behind when the sun is gone.

Djinn existed long before monotheism, forget the manichean binaries for a moment. There is no hierarchy, there is only pause, a moment of quiet after a glass shatters on the floor, or the scrape of metal on metal. The sudden suspension of jarring sound and sensation is a blessing, a safety, the djinns are cleared from the room. But understand, the djinn is both chaos and calm, for one cannot exist without the other.

It may be the surprising flash of sun on a mirror, something that seems trivial in the mind but not in the soul, where it resonates. And it is a signal that whatever choice you made, it was yours to make. Jade only lays out the possibilities of things before moving on. H/e/r sudden presence sparks the imagination, and H/e/r departure leaves the space to consider the potential of the idea, and the quiet to hear one’s deepest thoughts.

The story of JADE is a collaboration that brought a team of masters from various points on the globe together to create the final images. The djinn had her hand in things all along, because of course she is everywhere. The weavers and printers in India, they let us apply the wood blocks to the chanderi silk. Lotus, clouds, and blossoms in indigo, green and gold, the color of jade, between earth and sky. The tailors imagined costumes from around the world, western shirt and nehru jacket, lehenga skirt and trousers, turban and gloves. And back to New Orleans where Jade pivoted and flew about the studio, impossible to be captured by any lens– only in fleeting sparks of light in constant motion. Then off to the printers in Paris while embroiders in Jaipur prepared the fabrics, who worked the leaves and flowers of the upholstered frames— blossom, in full bloom and constellation. All the while, framers in New Orleans and Morocco would build the most robust reveal the windows in which we get a glimpse of Jade, the Djinn.

It takes a community to create a spark.

Back and forth, from here to there, all of us up to our ribs in this single project, and all of us attentive to the moment of inspiration that turns work into purpose, an idea into a work. She entered the space(s) and left something behind, and now we will continue to work together as we have learned to do. Our individual and collective imagination is expanding around costume and storytelling, and infinite possibilities. Jade becomes a space in the artist’s practice now and for what is to come.