Meet our third artoberVA 2022 Spotlight, Aimee Joyaux. Aimee is an artist and educator out of Petersburg, VA working across mediums from analog photography and drawing to printing and letterpress. This week she shares musings on play over perfection and forever tending to your art practice.

Read ahead for Aimee’s words:

CultureWorks: Who are you and what’s your story?

Aimee Joyaux: Hi! My name is Aimee Joyaux. I think of myself professionally as an artist and educator. My creative background…hmmm….I was a dreamy kid, but I didn’t have much exposure to the arts in school until my senior year in high school. I took a painting class and fell in love. I felt like I’d found a language that made sense (in distinct contrast to the way I felt about chemistry or expository writing). By that point, I already thought I would become a teacher, that seemed preordained for whatever reason.

I studied painting and drawing in college and 10 years later got my MFA in photography. I’ve taught art at the university, community college, high school, and community levels including most things related to analog photography, drawing, graphic design, bookmaking, 2D design, relief printing and letterpress, women in art, and art history.

CW:  Tell me a bit about your relationship with your creative work! What mediums do you enjoy working with? Are there certain themes that draw you to making art?

AJ: My relationship with my creative work changes over time. I’ve moved a lot and each relocation forces a jumpstart in some ways. Moving to Petersburg and working in Richmond was profound for me in a lot of ways as an artist. The energy coming out of VCUArts was palpable; working at VisArts was super stimulating (especially watching the stuff that came out of ArtVenture); the DIY movement was exploding so ideas of craft and what it meant to work with your hands became much more open-ended. I’ve spent a lot of time at Penland School of Craft and that has been hugely influential. So, that delicious stew of influence and opportunity left me feeling pretty free to explore and expand myself through my visual expression.

I enjoy painting very much and drawing. If I could only do one thing (were I to be dropped off on a deserted island), I would make sketchbooks and draw in them. Drawing is a term I use loosely. My sketchbooks are filled with imagery, bits of poems, songs, headlines, and images I find that I want to remember. They’re more like scrapbooks with sketching in them. They are my core form of expression and if the house was on fire, that’s what I’d grab.

I do love the iPhone camera…what an invention. It’s kept me out of the darkroom which is good for my health but I do miss printing. I loved that and working with large format cameras. I love letterpress because I love language and design and printing is very process heavy which I find relaxing.

Themes that consistently show up in my work? The meaning of life and increasingly what is a good death. How do we show up for both? How do we stay present for ourselves and others?

CW: Similarly, do you have a personal process for getting into the mindset of creating art?

AJ: I’m usually in the mindset to make art. That doesn’t mean I’m always making art but I certainly think about it a lot. My husband is an art historian so we look at a lot of art and talk about art, it is central to our relationship. If all else fails, I start cleaning my studio, and that act of holding tools, fumbling with materials, and sorting stuff inevitably gets me into making something or playing around in a focused way.

CW: How have you felt your creative work connect to the community around you? Have you discovered anything new over the years, and/or do you have a special memory in your experience?

AJ: Before I moved to Virginia, I worked primarily in B&W photography and tonal drawing, my palette was very muted. I became interested in color as a formal tool to create a sense of space and visual tension in painting. But “color” has such a distinct and profoundly messy meaning in the American South so, in addition to using color to explore dimensionality, I began exploring color as a symbol unto itself. Much of my work is reactionary, a visceral reflection of my experiences. I’m an empath so I am constantly construing meaning based on the onslaught of emotions I sense around me. Living in Petersburg, especially these last few years, has really brought to the surface the grip Jim Crow has on the American Dream and I’ve explored those ideas in depth. First, as a spectator trying to understand a new culture and then as an activist fighting for a better version of our collective truth. 

CW: Describe your collaborative project with Virginia State University. What sparked your inspiration to develop this project, and what are you looking forward to?

AJ: VSU is very woven into the history of Petersburg. Homecoming is an incredible event with all their local schools participating from the elementary up through the high schools. The energy of marching bands is infectious. I’ve never experienced a university that included the whole community in such a significant event but that is the culture of an HBCU. It is an inspiring model of wrap-around support for students, alumni, and their families. I began to understand the differences between HBCUs and PWI as an educator and administrator, but as soon as I retired, I took a ceramics class at VSU and saw the differences as a student. 

VSU is a land grant school with a large agricultural extension program including the Randolph Farm, a lab/classroom. I have been picking blueberries there for the last three years for the food bank so I have learned a lot about what happens there which prompted my interest in black farming, urban farming, and farming as a social justice practice.

I was always thinking about the farm as a creative space and paper-making seems like a great way to play with materials and ideas that are organic and fragile, perhaps temporary, and hyper-local. This is a wonderful way to think about making and feel connected to a place in a personal way but also to explore universal ideas of belonging. 

So, I kept talking about the farm as a studio and eventually found a way to apply these ideas through paper making and people that thought it might be fun including a biologist, a ceramist, and a horticulturalist. Based on the initial interest of the students, I think we’re going to have a great time!

CW:  What advice do you have for young artists interested in exploring different mediums of expression?

AJ: I think it’s important to let your ideas lead you rather than your tools. There is an appropriate expression or a way of working that makes sense or fits one idea more than another, so I encourage people to explore their ideas deeply and develop their technical skills continually. Play, don’t let perfect get in the way of progress. Keep taking classes and workshops. Forge ahead, keep working. Art making is a practice and its needs to be tended. If you are a maker by trade it can begin to feel rote. A new form of expression can create new energy and outlets for your ideas. And last but not least - look at a lot of art and keep notebooks or sketchbooks so you always have a place to go where you can reflect and begin again.

CW: What feeds your creativity when you are not actively creating work, and how do you overcome artistic blocks?

AJ: I think about art (almost) all the time. I jot down ideas, phrases, song lyrics, copy pictures, list color palettes, and gather, gather, gather. All these random scraps of insight eventually make it into sketchbooks and these collections of mashed-up ideas prompt my work. I don’t ever get an artistic block but I can be lazy so if I’m not feelin’ it in the studio, I either start cleaning up or sit with my sketchbooks and before long I’m up and running.

CW:  What does artoberVA mean to you? Why do arts & culture matter?

AJ: Art is the oldest form of human expression for which there is a record, so it seems the urge to make is part of our DNA. The fact that we can love something, connect to it, and understand it - an object or image from a vastly different era and culture speaks to the immense power of art. Very few things in life draw us together as humans in the way that art does. Perhaps it will be able to save us from ourselves.

ArtoberVA is a wonderful way to highlight the arts locally, call our attention to all that’s happening in our own communities, and remind us of the power, magic, and diversity of creative expression happening right here, right now.  

Learn more about Aimee: http://www.aimeejoyaux.com/
Stay updated with Aimee: https://www.instagram.com/aimeejoyaux/?hl=en