San Marcos Studio Tour- Mothership Studios/ Jessamyn Plotts
Through the noise, a voice rings clear–in an ensemble of artistic expression, Jessamyn Plotts’ work moves with purpose–strange, sacred, and haunting. Amidst the charming, eclectic mixture of works by local artists and the standard gallery hang, a portal to another realm lay in wait. Tucked between unassuming walls, I found a living room (or rather a dingy basement den), viscera strewn about, and fully equipped with a David Lynch vigil, as any good basement should. Though the Twin Peaks marathon playing on the television enticed me, the space itself, in all its gloriously awful (in the best sense of the word) disarray, captured me. This art experience, created by Jessamyn Plotts with the American Communal Industries artist group, challenges viewers, immersing them in a simultaneously dreamy yet grotesque meditation on the self that resonates as remarkably human.
Not to say I didn’t enjoy the rest of the exhibition–I certainly did, though some works were more successful than others, perhaps to no fault of the artists involved, but rather a lack of curatorial vision. Overall, the show was pleasant, providing a sample of the many regional professional and amateur artists participating in the tour, from paintings to ceramic sculptures, collage to textiles, metal work, and more. Works of varying styles and subjects were arranged neatly on the walls with no discernible rhyme or reason. While the studio tour as an entity undoubtedly builds connection and community amongst artists, accomplishing Mothership’s mission to “embolden the local arts community,” I couldn’t help but feel something was missing in the group exhibition–a theme. Mothership brandishes the tour’s inclusivity, allowing any willing artist to participate in the annual event, a noble endeavor indeed–providing resources and a voice to aspiring artists–yet disserviced by the absence of an overarching identity. Don’t misunderstand, artistic merit abounds in this preview, but that’s precisely what it is–a teaser, not an exhibition. I found myself searching for wall text or a pamphlet–something, anything–to tell me what exactly I was looking at and why I should care. A lens in which to view the works presented would provide needed structure, coherence, accessibility, and purpose to the show; pieces, when placed in conversation with each other, rather than simply beside, promote audiences’ intellectual or emotional engagement, and ultimately transforms a collection of seemingly unrelated artworks into a unified experience.
Despite this, a collective communal identity emerges, not through the exhibition, but through the artists themselves. The works don’t all necessarily harmonize with each other–many felt distinctly solitary in their surrounding companions–but resonate regardless because of who made them, not how they were arranged. The voice of San Marcos speaks, artworks as its vessel, offering insight into local memory, emotion, and experience. Not every work is sublime, but together reflect our local cultural zeitgeist nonetheless. Yet, what constitutes the sublime in art? Innovation? Technique? Palpable emotion or aesthetic appeal, perhaps? Yes, probably all of these, but ultimately, for me, an artwork will only excel if it moves you–commands contemplation, stirs the soul, follows you home at the end of your visit. Paul Murray’s Hopkins Sunset particularly spoke to me. Maybe I’m partial to impressionism, nevertheless, I couldn’t help but delight in Murray’s rendering of San Marcos’ historic town square. I found such comfort in the all too familiar view and yet yearned for it still. Something so simple as a landscape felt like a distant memory of a place I lived and loved long ago–a souvenir of an ephemeral moment slipped away. Its small scale and local subject matter give way to a distinctly intimate experience unreplicable outside the context of the San Marcos cultural scene. While Hopkins Sunset doesn’t break the mold, Murray elevates the mundane into something nearly sacred, revelatory even–A love letter to the city through tender, yet deliberate brushstrokes.
Additionally, I found Elijah Cuminato’s Frederick quite compelling despite its relative simplicity. The weight of the world hangs heavy upon poor Frederick’s shoulders. Tired eyes glow against a creature’s shadowed form, revealing only a pair of disheartened hands, strikingly distinct in their realism compared to the flat field of yellow beyond him. We wonder what lurks behind the shadow and what darkness could befall our subject so treacherously amidst the sunny warmth of this golden expanse. Cuminato builds mystery through tension, juxtaposing both dark with light, and minimalism with realism, resulting in a mutual somber uncertainty between us and our forlorn friend Fred (I’ve been there too, buddy. Hang in there). Frederick and Hopkins Sunset are contemporary interpretations of surrealism and impressionism, respectively; just two of a diverse range of styles on exhibit, demonstrating the breadth of the artists and expression throughout our city. Many pieces reference local history and culture, providing a through-line to the exhibition. Ultimately, these San Marcos-isms capture the spirit of the tour, which itself is a testament to the unique artistic community that the city fosters.
The absence of a curatorial voice in the main exhibition becomes glaringly apparent upon entering resident artist Jessamyn Plott’s studio. This space, the third stop on the tour, was less a studio and more a deeply personal sensory experience. Though small and chaotic (think the size of a large closet), its details delighted my eyes. The walls were painted black, chairs aligned in front of a TV playing the entirety of Twin Peaks, and paintings (of sorts) hung haphazardly from the ceiling and walls. I sat and watched as scraps of chiffon, latex gloves, and paper swayed around my head, contemplating this almost overwhelming yet surprisingly cozy space. Above, a cow heart reared its head through an incision on a sheet of bloody tissue stretched across like a canopy, blocking the view of the unfinished gallery roof, thus immersing us further into the scene. To one side, a tiered wrought iron shelf held rows and rows of candles lit in commemoration of the late (great) David Lynch, offering visitors a chance to participate in lighting one (I chose one with a dove spreading its wings), effectively obscuring the threshold of reverence and performance. On the obverse wall, soft lamp light diffused through cut-outs in draped cloth, illuminating painted polaroids and paparazzi pictures–representations of the self made tangible. Plotts explores an unconventional form of self portraiture in which not all images are necessarily her likeness, but rather reflections or extensions of herself. She confronts issues of physicality, grappling with an acute awareness of the body and the transformation of digital media into our material world as a means to perhaps make sense of our corporeal existence on earth. What constitutes us if not our friends, memories, and interests?
Plotts’ quick, energetic style flourishes in her paintings of photographs, imbuing a transient moment with longevity. They read as both divine yet disposable, interchangeable but intimate–clearly we’ve exited the gallery and entered a devotional space. Its no surprise the work fosters an air of sanctity, with its votive candles flickering, scattered images hanging, and makeshift pews; it conjures a russian orthodox icon corner, holy portraits suspended to represent the elevation of the soul when praying, but rather than dieties and saints, we observe ourselves, the seemingly insignificant, the spectacular moments of beauty that occur everyday. Plotts spotlights this unseen identity–selfie sessions resulting in countless, nearly indistinguishable photos that normally stay neatly confined to the depths of our phone’s camera rolls, an unapologetically disorganized home studio, or the weight of existence in our own skin–the parts of us we deem unfit to share with the world. And yet they remain parts of us, still. The work becomes an ode to the unseemly; an embrace of our most personal, primal self. Through documentation, she elevates these expendable images to nobler heights, prompting reflection on the ways in which we construct our public and personal identities.
Moreover, Plotts blurs the line delineating the space as strictly an installation, shrine, or performance, mimicking the multiplicity of self expression. Philosopher Judith Butler defines identity not by what we are, but rather by what we do. In essence, we assume the role of performer in both identity and the exhibit. The former in our daily rituals–how we dress, pose, speak (I suppose I’m performing right now), and the latter in our participation–sitting, watching, lighting a candle, remembering. But why do we perform and if we always are, can anything we do truly be genuine? Sincerity is not found in the absence of performance, but in the moment a performance feels inhabited–chosen, not imposed–unencumbered from submitting to outsider approval. That being said, we don’t exist outside of cultural norms; in fact, our performances are constantly informed by them, even in acts of resistance–haunted, if you will. There’s a certain duality in the process of self portraiture–it, of course, involves capturing a likeness but also constructing an identity–it’s a mirror of the artist, yes, but a curated one, intended to be witnessed. Plotts lays herself bare at the viewer’s hands in this raw self portrait, and yet it’s clearly no ordinary rumination on the self–it’s theatrical, surreal, and most of all staged. Every tear, tatter, and crooked painting offered to us faced careful consideration, but what remains hidden?
Lynch’s essence lingers, not only in “Laura Palmer’s Theme” echoing from the TV, but in the disorienting, fragmented reality thrust upon us on entry. Like a Lynchian protagonist, we navigate a scene, almost familiar but increasingly foreign on inspection, caught between the seen and the suppressed. Identity, a key theme in the late director’s work, writhes on the threshold of reality and perception–recognition and repression–the self is rarely singular or stable, and becomes further obscured through performance. The boundary between truth and illusion dissolves, giving way to the realization that identity, as one, is ultimately undefinable. Lynch suggests our performances emanate not from social conditioning, but our innermost desires, memories, and traumas–the unconscious seeping into our waking reality. Here, ritual, self portraiture, and staging complicate the work, both concealing and revealing the self. She does not confess to a unified identity, but rather something fractured and incoherent–a seemingly contradictory amalgamation of selves. Yes, it’s the mundane, the grotesque, the spectacle; but in the same breath it’s the sacred, the beautiful, the sincere. It’s a selection of glimpses, not a full story. Perhaps the full story can never be accessed. With such radical vulnerability, one might expect the “whole truth” of her identity, but such a thing doesn’t exist–the truth must be discerned from what we’re shown, and especially from what we’re not.
While identity slips through our fingers, Plotts grasps it in her hands, bridging the immaterial soul and physical body through ritual. A cow heart looms above, its presence palpable, pulsing. The sheet of skin it rests upon buckles at its weight like a hernia: its materiality inescapable, yet fleeting, much like our own bodies. Each morning, the flesh is cut and the heart emerges through this portal–a living relic, exposed and watched. By night, it is returned to the earth, and the wound sewn shut–a temporary cure, for both flesh and heart will suffer the same fate tomorrow. With each cycle of incision and burial, Plotts confronts identity as a process of perpetual rupture and reformation, while grounding it in the realm of tangibility. The body becomes both the site and the offering of the ritual–the sutured wound serving as physical evidence, a kind of scarred archive of memories: what we lose, conceal, or survive. The wound is not erased but reconciled. The heart exists at the crossroads of the disembodied and the material, a liminal object connecting the digital and visceral–image becoming active. The transient life of the organ mirrors the ephemerality of virtual media, both impermanent, but the heart requires labor and care in disposal, drawing attention to its reality–its weight. The ritual, sacred and surgical, contemplates what it means to occupy space, to be seen, and to be changed.
Plotts’ studio offers not resolution, but an invitation. Through the chaos of fragments and gestures, something undeniably real manifests: identity–unfixed, constructed, and performed. It’s disturbingly divine, dramatically staged, but never false, simultaneously revealing the limits of self expression and the power of deliberate presence. In the scope of the San Marcos Studio Tour, her immersive installation shines, mirroring the very nature of the showcase: a portrait of distinct voices–often at odds, sometimes harmonious, but ultimately human. Perhaps the absence of a curatorial vision imitates the fractured ways in which we experience identity. The artists share a space not to conform, but to coexist; unified not in theme but in geography, memory, and a shared instinct to create. If identity cannot be fully seen, the Studio Tour reminds us it can still be felt. We don’t always need a neatly packaged narrative–just the chance to witness each other, flaws and all.