In Conversation With: Jane Hammond
The Tithe Barn at Thyme is delighted to host an exhibition by the US artist, Jane Hammond in collaboration with The Lyndsey Ingram Gallery, London.
Jane Hammond’s botanical collages offer a re-interpretation of the painterly tradition of botanical art. Whilst the spectacular arrangements of flowers, grasses and seeds, accompanied by insects and birds are curiously familiar, the juxtaposition of images from a myriad of places and time results in works that are entirely original.
What is your starting point for your collages?
The starting point is different in different cases. Sometimes it is an idea such as "a piece where everything is poison," "a piece where everything is edible." "Life cycles of the Monarch Butterfly." etc. Other times it is chromatic: Green, Brown and pink flowers, glass Vase, white paper with gold flecks." "Gold ground, mostly white and very dark flowers, Bird of Paradise with long black feathers." It varies. But I pretty much always start with an idea, I don’t just start randomly arranging things. Sometimes the beginning is a particular paper I'm eager to use and it’s marriage with a vase then that drives the plant information.
How long have you been collecting the eclectic array of media you use in your work, and where do you look to source this?
A long time. I collect books, so for example I have a small group of books on flowers with that oddball early color photography. The pictures are interesting but by our standards today they do not resemble the flowers - this can be interesting. In 2007 I did a residency at Dartmouth College and I lived there for three months. I quickly discovered the Dartmouth Medical Library where there were collections such as seven volumes on the mosses of Turkey, five volumes on the lichens of Puerto Rico, big taxonomic studies. This is where I really got serious about expanding my flora holdings. Once the librarian telephoned me and said "I know you have unlimited library privileges as the Resident Artist, but did you know you have 129 books signed out?" In recent years I do a lot of internet searching and peruse online digital libraries. For me the hunt is part of the process. I love it. I would say most days I do some image hunting.
Do you have a favourite source material or media that you like to work with for your collages?
I'm very tuned into paper and although I use all kinds of paper I am really a devotee of Japanese papers, they manage to feel handmade and elegant at the same time. You will see that the background of every collage is also a collage.
What is the most enjoyable part of your creative process?
Being in the Zone: You've worked out the idea and done the original arrangement, which can take several days and now you are putting the piece together. You are immersed in the minute of it and you have not yet encountered the inevitable problems in which your initial idea /composition idea seems to wobble. You are not yet in what I call the fight, where things are fraught and you are fighting to pull the whole thing off compositionally, chromatically, as an ensemble of forms. You are still blissfully assembling.
Is there a style or period of art that inspires you the most?
I like all kinds of art: Egyptian, NW Coast Indigenous art from the Americas, Japanese prints, early Italian, Dada and Surrealism, Pop. I'm an omnivore.
Was creating art always your calling?
I went to college thinking I was going to study to become a doctor. I liked Science the best when I was young, but once I started making art in the early seventies it edged out everything else and became all-consuming.
Do you have a favourite piece in the collection?
Probably not, what I like most is the range of it: Some pieces are kind of surprising or even mischievous, some are more traditionally beautiful, some are a bit edgy. Some have peaches, some have venomous snakes.
