#cgz featured artist

[clairesgaragezine]

CGZ Featured Artist: MJ (Molly Jean)

May 25, 2023

Everyone, I am SO excited!! Please welcome our very first featured artist: MJ, stands for Molly Jean, female, 38 years old in Kansas City, Missouri. No formal art education outside of the 7 art classes she took in highschool. She took two semesters of theater in community college, "that counts for something" she says. She used to have a website but hasn't updated in years, you can go ahead and find her on Instagram @mollyjean.art  or over on her Tumblr which is a mish mash of fan girl stuff and whatever else she feels like @yourcoolauntie (for her avatar of Aunt Gayle from Bob's Burgers)

Leviathan, 2012 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20in)

CGZ: When did you start painting? What’s your earliest memory of painting or of creating art? 

MJ: I remember making a little pinch pot in Kindergarten. In first grade we made robots out of different materials, they were flat on paper, it was mixed medium. I used tinfoil and some other stuff. It got hung up at the school district's main office, they tracked me down and gave it back to me in highschool! 

CGZ: And where is the robot now?

MJ: I don't know where the robot is, my mom may have it in a box but it may have gotten lost.

Object II, 2020 (Acrylic on canvas, 30x40 in)

CGZ: Has your birthplace or your family background influenced your approach to creating art? 

MJ: I wish I had an answer about my culture or my family heritage, but I don't. My dad's side is Irish & English, his family came over well over a hundred years ago. My mom is half Croatian but her grandparents were old by the time she was born, and they all assimilated very thoroughly, so I know little of Slavic culture. So birthplace and heritage…the isolating suburbs of the southern midwest. 

Ultimately art has been my constant therapy, so my approach is, I have to do it. Let me try not to trauma dump too much. I grew up in a very dysfunctional home. My mom was the gentler one, my dad was scary. But my folks would take my siblings and I out to museums and around the city to expose us to a bigger world outside our suburb. We grew up poorer than we should have been because my dad was a high functioning addict, with an okay job with the city, but money went to drugs and lawyers. So I'm certain being aware early on of how class works in America shaped me as well. My mom and dad were too different from one another but they both appreciated the world, usually in a very critical and very negative way. My father, troubled, but very smart, always played music, records, he loved movies and anything avant garde and fringe. He had no boundaries and it was a volatile home. So, in a house where one parent was always afraid to speak up because her spouse would explode in a rage and the other never not talking about his every thought and feeling…I never learned to properly communicate mine. So…art. My folks are still alive…I realize I wrote this like they're dead.

CGZ: Who are your biggest artistic influences? 

MJ: The dadaists, the surrealists, abstract expressionists, the early abstract guys like Wassily Kandinsky. We watched a documentary in Jr. high about Keith Haring that stuck with me. That's a big leap from Picasso to Haring but this is kinda off the top of my head, I never took any art history courses.

CGZ: How has your art practice changed over time? 

MJ: I used to be uncomfortable calling myself an artist, in my early 20s I didn't think I'd earned it because I hadn't sold anything yet. That was real dumb. If you make something that serves absolutely no function other than you created it and now it exists and now it's in the world to be debated, analyzed or just looked at and displayed, congratulations you made an art. That aligns with the old adage of Art for art's sake.

CGZ: What do you like best about your work? What makes you happy when you’re creating?

MJ: I don't think I have a best liked…but I'm generally pleased if I can come close to what I had in my mind before I started.

Labyrinth, 2022 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20 in)

CGZ: I adored your 2023 International Women’s Day post (self-portraits in a candlelit bath with body-affirming/life-affirming messages). Is there a shared meaning or messaging across your whole art practice? What differs for you between your abstract paintings and your photography projects?

MJ: Thank you so much for saying that. Also, great question. This is actually something I've thought about because I'm scared. It's been years since I've displayed anything and I'm worried if I approach a gallery they will ask me this and I will squeak out a bullshit answer like, let the art speak for itself. I think if there is a thread between all my work, paint, mixed media, photography it's about discovery and exploration, acceptance. I'm a traumatized, depressed, queer so that's easy, right? Looking at the parts of ourselves we'd rather keep hidden because of shame or pain, that we all have a part of ourselves we must excavate. Even folks with happy childhoods. Just don't lose yourself in the ditch in the process.  …I'm not sure any of that made sense.

CGZ: What are some of the most memorable responses you’ve received about your work? 

MJ: About a decade or so ago a friend made a little film about this shadowbox project I was doing. It was an artist showcase. I was in the film community as a script supervisor…so that's how most knew me. I didn't talk about my art. I can't watch it now because I cringe…but after the viewing, a DP came up to me and he said, "I didn't know you were interesting." Weird backhanded compliment.

Another standout is walking into a pop up gallery I was showing at and meeting a jewelry designer there and she said, "You must be MJ, you look like your art." That was very affirming.

CGZ: What are the “little things” that you notice but no one else does that inspire your work? 

MJ: A sunrise, the way light simmers and breaks apart when it shines through a tree canopy. I think people see that stuff, I don't want to pretend I have some profound insight on life that others don't. I suppose it's about priorities and what we choose to register and spend our time on. I have no children or a partner, I'm my own distraction and obstacle. I do prioritize stillness.

CGZ: What are your favorite mediums to create in? Are there any “experimental” or new-to-you mediums that you’re interested in exploring?

MJ:  Acrylic is my main bag. I'd love to work with oils. Not very exciting I know. Honestly, I have ideas for sculptures but have no idea where to begin.

CGZ: What is your favorite time of day to create? What’s your “just right” setting? Do you have a favorite drink or mood-setting music? A lucky trinket you keep nearby?

MJ: Some might not say I'm not a true artist because I have a day job and am not starving for my art…but that's the dream right, to be able to eat and shelter yourself and do only art. So, usually midday on a day off. I might smoke some weed, I will definitely be listening to music, through my stereo setup or my headphones. 

CGZ: Describe what it feels like when you know a piece is finished. What makes you sit back and go “That’s done.”

MJ: I never have that feeling of "done", it's usually, I have exhausted all effort and I am either satisfied or I'm not. I'm guilty of painting over works. But I have a few pieces I think I'm completely satisfied with. The ones pictured are a few of those.

CGZ: Where do you go for inspiration? What helps refill the well?

MJ: Listening to other artists, and other people speak on their work. Moonage Daydream, the David Bowie documentary I watched the other night for example. I recently watched a piece on Roberta Flack. Music is a big motivator. I live about 10 miles from The Nelson Atkins Museum of art, so going and looking at the Marcel Duchamp or the Van Gogh's helps too.

CGZ: Do you have a favorite art museum? When you go there, where do you beeline to first?

MJ: See previous. Ha.

CGZ: What’s the weirdest or best book you’ve read recently?

MJ: I'm shit at getting around to finishing a book. I have Blood, Sweat and Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max Fury Road next to my bed. Spine not cracked. 

CGZ: As the kids say: “I’m in my ___ era.” What era are you in? 

MJ: Hermit. My fingernails haven't started to curl yet so there is still hope.

As Above So Below, 2020 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20 in)

CGZ: What song has been stuck in your head lately? 

MJ: Recently, On My Own from Les Mis. The hermit bit aside, I did just go catch the tour that came through town. So…

CGZ: What keeps you going? How do you overcome creative blocks?

MJ: I don't have creative blocks per se. They can happen but mostly I have hurdles. I let my brother move into the room I was using as my studio…so, I haven't been painting as much. But I have to always be creating something. As a kid before I painted I played piano, then got into theater, acting, modeling for a couple years. I once had a webshow with a best friend where we reviewed TV shows and recreated the episode using Barbie dolls. I was 27. Nowadays I write or play with photography, if I can't paint. Recently, some poetry, and about 100,000 words worth of fan fiction. A girl has gotta let it out somehow, no shame.

CGZ: What’s the best piece of artist/creator advice you’ve heard?

MJ: I'm sure I've heard plenty but my memory is crap, so I have no quotes to give you right now. I think in highschool, when my teacher came up over my shoulder and pointed at the heavy outline in my still life (that she'd tried to get me to stop doing) and said, "You just can't help yourself can you? That's just how you paint." Taught me something. We can be taught and told and can imitate and follow instructions and still reveal ourselves through a simple unconscious stroke.

CGZ: Where do you hope to be in five years? Ten? (Wrong answers only.)

MJ: I can't even provide a wrong answer. These kinds of questions addle my sick brain.

CGZ: A parting quote for our readers? (I adored, “I can't wait until I'm dead and all my art is at a thrift store or left beside a dumpster.”)

MJ: I'm glad you appreciated that. I do love the MOBA, museumofbadart.org, and would feel no shame being included there, they do important work, I do believe that.

I feel like I've said too much. I was mentally smoking a cigarette this whole time. So I'm stomping it out now. Just imagine me staring into your eyes like performance artist Marina Abramovic and come up with something.

This was really fun and terrifying by the way. Thanks so much Claire 🖤

Communication, 2020 (Acrylic and oil on canvas, 18x24 in)

Hellhound, 2012 (Acrylic on canvas, 16x20 in)

#claire's garage zine #cgz featured artist #mj: molly jean #@yourcoolauntie #cgz spring 2023 #2023-MAY-25 #MAY-25