Fresh from the Studio

Thu Jun 6, 2024

12PM

Fresh from the Studio invites W&TW artist members to share what they are working on now. In this virtual format, artists share work in progress, newly finished artworks, and recent or upcoming projects. Each presentation is about 10 minutes with time for your questions and comments afterwards. Fresh from the Studio is your chance to see what is new and hear from contemporary artists. This program is free and open to the public.

This segment of Fresh from the Studio will feature Jesselyn Gordon, Molly Mansfield, Joan Roberts Garcia, and Alexis Sones.

About the Artists

Jesselyn Gordon was born in Rancho Cucamonga, California and raised in a military family, moving every few years around the state of California. In 2012, she moved to San Antonio; four years later she began her studies at Northwest Vista College and transferred to the University of Texas at San Antonio obtaining a BFA with a concentration in ceramics. Throughout her college years she started her own business, Thrown Studio, and began selling her functional ceramic wares, all while exploring fine art capabilities focusing in the ceramic realm. Her work focuses on the way humans respond to nature and occurrences that happen in life. She strives to create community and opportunities for herself and viewers through her explorative works dealing with grief and connection, curating spaces for a quiet inward reflection in hopes to obtain understanding.

Molly Mansfield is a self taught oil painter based in Austin, Texas. Driven by her love of the medium and obsession with color and pattern, she has evolved a style characterized by her unique brushwork and patterned still lives. Her work highlights the intricacies of femininity, memory, and tradition, while exploring the histories that have created trivializations around color, pattern, and craft. Her deep connection to her medium and its expressive possibilities is evident in her paintings which have resonated with private collectors across the country and been featured in publications such as Create! Magazine, HGTV, and Anthropologie.

Joan Roberts Garcia entered the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at the age of 27, pregnant with her first of two children. Thus began two inextricably intertwined, equally demanding and rewarding yet often conflicting roles: that of a serious artist and as a single mother. Roberts Garcia was awarded a traveling scholarship upon graduation, which she took in Spain- three-year-old daughter in tow. The Moorish architecture excited and inspired years of abstractions in mixed media, that combined spatial and physical opposites in accumulations that forced the viewer to give up trying to focus on parts and experience their effect instead- much like what is seen in nature. Space and geometry witnessed in landscapes are some current subjects Joan is exploring. She refers to some new landscapes as her “membrane paintings”. Nature has always been the source of her inspiration, whether in the brambles and trees she photographs, the subtle nuances of dusk light on organic forms, interiors, architectural and urban forms or in the natural process of tarnish.

Alexis Sones experienced a miracle on the evening of October 1 st, 2018: her vision spontaneously returned after wearing thick prescription glasses and contact lenses for 25 years. Ironically, this shifted her focus from observing and painting the outer world to giving form to the images and colors living in her inner world. Her outer vision returned, but her inner vision re-awakened. Sones’s subject matter shifted from bright and impressionistic landscapes and portraits painted from photographic references to abstract, expressive, and symbolic works entirely sourced from her imagination. Deeply influenced by ancient mythology across many world cultures, night dreams and daydreams, Sones is most interested in how our own imaginations can serve as a compass to provide orientation, purpose, and direction within the wider mythical narrative of our world. Born in Los Angeles, CA, Sones is currently located in Austin, Texas.

Interested in participating in Fresh from the Studio? Click here to learn more about artist membership benefits and opportunities!