Today we’d like to introduce you to Jordan Piantedosi.
Jordan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I have been drawing & painting since I was a little kid, and have always considered it my job & my calling. I had an online comic that I started in 2004 called Perfect Stars – a great interdisciplinary medium if you want to consider writing, pacing, character development within a cinematic narrative, design layouts, try to balance illustration & text together in the same composition, think about fonts, visual metaphors, etc. Simultaneously I always had a really close & passionate relationship with oil painting. I dropped out of MICA in Baltimore because it was too expensive & spent about four years being drunk & living in various warehouses. Eventually I went to Massart (very reasonably priced) & met my fabulous curator Olivia Ives Flores, who was already running a gallery even though she was still a little baby fetus. She helped get me plenty of great jobs over the years, like painting murals at the Beat Brasserie in Harvard Square, which was a really big, marvelous project. I enjoy a balance of creative freedom to be inventive but also work within the parameters of a certain aesthetic. For example, the owners of the Beat wanted a colorful, psychedelic art-nouveau style inspired by artists like Alphonse Mucha and Peter Max, but I was free to pitch designs to them for the many walls I painted there. But, because I am afraid of heights, I eventually moved away from painting very large murals! In the past five years I have been obsessed with designing extremely complicated and illustrative textiles, in collaboration with Erin Robertson who I met at Massart. I also paint on leather. Erin and I worked together on narrative-driven fashion collections from 2013-2017. In 2016 we worked together in an absolutely energetic creative fever, making her collection that ended up winning project runway! That was a really fantastic collection, the project Funway collection. Then in 2017 we did an activism collection, and one piece was even acquired by the MFA. Then we did a biology & technology collection called Sexual Helix, about the gender roles and mating habits of different sea creatures. In January of 2018 I got the opportunity to rent a really large basement studio on Newbury Street, under my friend Gina DeWolfe’s studio boutique/atelier DeWolfe Leather Goods at 331 Newbury. I share studio space with my painting buddy from Massart, Rebecca Larios, and we have been focused on just painting as much as possible while we have access to this space, which will become a medical marijuana dispensary in October. So although I love painting, I am also really tormented by my desire to make textiles & use lasers and other forms of technology. Really, having a lot of ideas every day can feel like I’m covered in bees. I almost never have time to make everything I want to make, but I try my best!
Has it been a smooth road?
It’s always a challenge to monetize creative work. When you are in touch with something that excites you, that hasn’t been expressed verbally yet, that is difficult to monetize. Many artists have issues with socializing, organization, mental health, physical health, executive function disorders, irrational fears, bizarre fixations, you name it! The #metoo movement has been really helpful personally, because in the art world there is no HR department to go to for all the knee-touching that goes on. Now I imagine certain individuals might think twice before getting handsy. It is difficult as a woman artist to find a mentor. Someone I thought was my mentor turned out to be a creep. But after many years & bad experiences with many different creeps, I look around & find that I’m surrounded by amazing women! We find ways to make spaces to occupy together & support one another. There’s nothing better than a supportive community of creative women.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Jordan Piantedosi– tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud and what sets you apart from others.
I do love portrait commissions, especially cute babies or people with strange requests. As an artist I suppose I am unique because I am very interdisciplinary. I love fashion & comics & video games & classic literature – I like artwork that is a bit witty. Most of all I like to elevate femme forms of expression. There is an irritating hierarchy of form in a lot of the arts – these large, gestural marks and minimal fields of color are seen as being “intellectually charged” – but with what? No one really wants to admit that most of these abstractions are meaningless gestures of hopeless, witless, empty machismo. Even your average fashion magazine engages in collage & assemblage.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I like Boston because sometimes you can walk down the street without someone yelling at you. In NYC, you can’t stop and look at a poster on the wall and there is nowhere to sit down. Yes, in Boston the rents are very high & the nightlife is not so good. But at least on Newbury Street there are a lot of flowers. The Aquarium is very good. I wish there were more spaces for artists & funding, grants & awards.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.jordanpiantedosiart.com
- Email: piantedosij@gmail.com
- Instagram: @jordanpiantedosi
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