Lunchtime Lecture #1: Noelani Jones

Noelani Jones is a weaver living in Maryland. She is living on her family's farm and uses their goats' fleece and dye from their dye garden to make her work. She graduated from VCU and as since had her work shown in many exhibitions.

Her experience gave me a sense of partial details of living as an artist. She worked in the service industry for a couple years before being able to do art full-time. She works jobs at the VMFA and the Weavers' Guild. It showed me that being an artist doesn't involve just one type of work. She alternated between teaching, living at a residency, and making work. This was especially surprising to me as weaving seems like a time-consuming process.

Just this year, I have gained so much knowledge of the branching paths an artist can take. It makes me hopeful that I could manage being an artist in the future, while working a full-time job in an unrelated field. She described her installation in a public library, shown below. While a residency may be too much, I could see myself contributing to my community with art like she did.

One thing that stuck out to me was the answer to the question: How do you get ideas for your work?

She answered "notice what you notice." She clarified that if something catches your eye, you should follow that for inspiration. It's a very simple answer, but