Jessie Hudson is, by her own admission, obsessed with jellyfish. Hudson, a senior majoring in studio art, paints the creatures in a variety of styles, ranging from oil painting to comic-book-style printmaking. Her work can be found hanging on the walls at Winning Coffee Co. The Daily Lobo sat down with Hudson to discuss art, comic books and (of course) the gelatinous sea creature.
Daily Lobo: So what attracted you to jellyfish?
Jessie Hudson: I had a relative that told me they were more like fungi. Like when you destroy the top, they turn into more. I’m kind of a hippie in that sense, like, fungi is what’s keeping life together. I don’t know. They’re pretty interesting things. And they’re gorgeous.
DL: You have a lot of different styles, but it’s the same subject matter in all the styles. What influenced your different styles?
JH: I guess it’s partly artist’s block. You know, because it’s like I was obsessed with jellyfish, and I had painted enough of these soft, stylistic jellyfish. But one day I was just, like, I don’t know what to do to branch out, so I should probably just try treating them in a different light.
DL: How would you characterize the different styles?
JH: All of my really small pieces are very rushed, so I feel like they’re very cartoony. Most of my bigger pieces are unreal colors and unrealistic forms. And all of my prints, those are extremely solid. I don’t know how to characterize them.
DL: I was in here with a friend the other day, and we were trying to figure out if the prints, are, like … Do you print them out on the computer and color them in?
JH: Oh no, those are hand prints. That one over there is dry-point etching, so we get a piece of Plexiglas and dry-point onto it, and then we roll the ink on and then rub the ink off, and then we run it through a press. These ones are acid-dip, so I use a tree branch and a small piece of burlap sack, and then I spray-painted lacquer onto it. Everywhere the tree branch and burlap sack was blocking didn’t get the acrylic spray on it. So then when I dip it into the hydrochloric acid for 45 minutes, it ate away everywhere where there was no lacquer on it.
DL: You’re talking about some pretty complicated techniques here, like dipping stuff in hydrochloric acid.
JH: Not too complicated. That’s a first-level print making.
DL: Did you learn this stuff at UNM?
JH: CNM. That’s where I learned the print making. But UNM is all the painting.
DL: The prints are kind of comic-book style. Was that intentional?
JH: Yeah. Most of my other art is comic book interpretations of my friends. Like, I actually have a small comic book put together of Tucker vs. Bradford. They’re two friends of mine that we all think act like mad scientists. So I’m a big comic nerd.
DL: What’s your favorite comic?
JH: Umm … the first one I ever read was Lady Death. I know that’s a little intense, but, you know, the first one you ever read kind of gets you for life. And besides that, I like the classics, like old Spider Man.
DL: What are some of your other influences in your other styles?
JH: My other styles of art. Umm … Probably my family was really big on it, because they wanted something to hang up in their house. They’re really … I wouldn’t say “proper” people, but they’re not going to hang my comic-book stuff on their wall. So that’s what got me into, like, using a lot of oil paint instead of acrylic, things like that.
DL: How’d you end up getting your art exhibited at Winning’s?
JH: You can just ask them, and they’ll give you a month. You’ll probably have to wait, like, three or four months. And sometimes they ask to see your portfolio. But I was rooming with one of the employees, so he had already seen all my art. So it was really easy to walk up and say, “Hang my art for a month.”
DL: Would you like to add anything else about the jellyfish as metaphor?
JH: One of the best things is that they’re kind of open for interpretation. A jellyfish in itself, is part of countless different species of creatures. There’s some jellyfish, like the Portuguese Man o’War, that is not even a jellyfish. It’s actually four different colonies of bacteria growing together. But it looks like a jellyfish. It’s convergent evolution. It’s really interesting.
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DL: Have you ever been stung by a jellyfish?
JH: Yeah. I stuck my hand into a jar that someone had a jellyfish in at the aquarium.
DL: What inspired you to do that?
JH: They told me I could, but not to touch the tentacles. I stuck my hand in, and definitely the tentacles got me. The opportunity inspired me.
