In-Between Moments

The Jane Hartsook Gallery is pleased to present new work by Janice Jakielski. Jakielski marries modern industrial technology with historic ceramic forms to create beautiful objects that provide a moment of pause in an overwhelming world. Jakielski uses industrial casting methods to create paper-thin sheets of porcelain that she layers, folds, and curls to reimagine historic vessels from Europe and Asia. She reinvents these vessels without their interior volume, flattening them into outlines of their previous forms. By removing their function and playfully recreating these vessels in impossibly thin porcelain, Jakielski encourages the viewer to stop and take a closer look.

Like the Sèvres porcelain factory in its day, whose work she often references, Jakielski is at the forefront of technical and artistic innovation. In 18th century France innovation meant finally being able to make porcelain vessels—Europe lagged far behind China in understanding this technology—and recreating famous European paintings on those porcelain surfaces. For Jakielski it means adapting industrial methods used to make computer components to create a type of porcelain clay body that behaves like no other and taking inspiration from multiple craft disciplines to achieve her final forms. Where the makers at Sèvres drew inspiration from painting, Jakielski uses skills more often employed with fiber and paper crafts like embroidery and paper filigree to complete her designs.

Jakielski is an artist based out of Sutton, Massachusetts. She received an MFA in ceramics from University of Colorado, Boulder and her BFA at Alfred University. She is currently an adjunct faculty member at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She has shown her work across the United States, including at Wayne Art Center (Wayne, PA; 2018), Peters Projects (Santa Fe, NM; 2018), Racine Art Museum, (Racine, WI; 2016), and Houston Center for Contemporary Craft (Houston, TX; 2013). Jakielski has been an artist in residence at Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramic Arts (Helena, MT; 2019), and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts (Gatlinburg, TN; 2015), among others. She was awarded the Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship and the Society of Arts and Crafts Artist Award.