((PKG)) AN ARTIST CREATES ART
((TRT: 07:50))
((Topic Banner: An Artist Creates Art))
((Reporter/Camera: Aaron Fedor))
((Producer: Kathleen McLaughlin))
((Editor: Kyle Dubiel))
((Map: New York City, New York))
((Main characters: 1 male))
((Blurb: Jared Owens shares his different techniques and creative process to create one-of-a-kind art. ))
((NATS/SOT))
((Jared Owens
Artist))
Oh, we’re in luck. Yes, we are. Yeah. We got some live paint here. You gotta…try to…yeah…get it across and then, like that.
((Jared Owens
Artist))
My name is Jared Scott Owens. I’m a visual artist. My practice is still developing. I'm incorporating found objects. I have a background in ceramics and assemblage and some installation art.
((MUSIC/NATS))
((Courtesy: Jared Owens))
((Jared Owens
Artist))
I went to prison for conspiracy to possess narcotics, cocaine. Life in the federal prison was like waiting at DMV [Department of Motor Vehicles] with stabbings in between.
((Text on screen: Jared Owens served 13 years, 3 months at Fairton Federal Prison in New Jersey from February 2000 to April 2013.))
((MUSIC))
((Jared Owens
Artist))
It was like my fifth year. I was walking through the rec [recreation] yard and they had a ceramic program there.
((Courtesy: Jared Owens))
And I remember that I did ceramics as a child. That was my first love. So, I started going in there. I got the ceramic bug, which is a weird bug to get, but the ceramic bug is good because it's very Zen like, sort of take your mind off, you know, your situation. So, I needed that.
((Courtesy: Jared Owens))
And then eventually, wound up teaching classes, taking over a lot of responsibilities inside the ceramic room itself, teaching other guys throughout the years. I segued into painting because I always painted too. I had a[n] easel in junior high school and high school. And then I just, I knew, I started really looking at art in magazines and I said, you know what? I need to paint. I understand the language, what it takes to do it. And I didn't have the material to do it, but I could visualize what it was to paint.
((MUSIC/NATS))
((Jared Owens
Artist))
How art helped me in prison was definitely a coping mechanism, but it was also an exercise in seeing what I can get away with while I was in there. I always need to feel like I'm breaking the law for some reason. And art made me feel like I was breaking the law while I was in prison without really doing anything that's going to get me in big trouble. Even making pieces inside, anything that was made, to me, was valuable because it was creativity in a place that was supposed to oppress you. That was the thing that kept me going, was the challenge of saying, “Hey, I'm going to make it through this, you know, part of my life, and I'm going to get home, and I'm going to have a practice.” I studied like a lot. What paints are made out of, the materials, what the masters painted with, what they had, what they didn't have, the first cadmiums, when they were on a canvas, you know, like who was the first one to do that, like I was interested in all that. And that kept me going.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Courtesy: Jared Owens))
((Jared Owens
Artist))
So, in this jar is soil from FCI [Federal Correctional Institution] Fairton. This is a peanut butter jar that’s sold in commissary. I would just clean these out. I would go to the yard and scoop up some dirt. It's a pretty soil. Like this is the soil from like that part of New Jersey, and it's unlike the soil here in New York, believe it or not. It's got a different color to it.
I was looking for a conceptual, physical element from inside the prison that spoke about everybody that's inside the prison. And this is the only thing I could find and had the DNA, the blood, sweat and tears of every, you know, person whoever came through the prison was probably on, in this soil from the weight pile. So for me, the idea was, you know, it came from watching “Saving Private Ryan”, when the guy was
((Courtesy: Jared Owens))
taking the soil from all the battlefield and stick it in his backpack. And this is kind of like the same thing for me. You know, like there's a finite amount of it. I'll never go back and get any more of it. So for me, it's a precious material.
((Jared Owens
Artist))

And I actually cut it with sand. Like this little bit that’s left might make into like 15 paintings. It's ever present. It's in all the work.
((NATS/MUSIC))

((Jared Owens
Artist))

So, the other thing that I incorporate into my practice is, like I call it, ‘The Carceral Palette’ or ‘The Prison Pallet’, which is,
((Courtesy: Jared Owens))
the hues are usually cadmiums, Indian yellows, just really dull colors, but they're bright, but they're dulled. The only place you're going to find this pallet is inside prison. It's just I’m an antenna. So I grab things out of the way they feel.
((Jared Owens
Artist))
So, like the work behind me is titled, ‘Nemesis’. I don't really do figurative painting, but I like this one because I did it by accident, and it's got everything that I love. It's just a loose painting. And it was a painting I did during when we had the upheavals because of the George Floyd killing.
((NATS/MUSIC))
((Jared Owens
Artist))

The bricks that are inside this dumpster there, they are really over 50, 60 years old, maybe even older. They don't fire them like that anymore. So, it’s a, it’s a…to me, it's a material that's valuable because it can't be replicated. And as far as applying it to a cultural aesthetic,
((Courtesy: Jared Owens))
I mean, bricks are used to build buildings. And unfortunately, some of the buildings that bricks build are prisons.
((Jared Owens
Artist))

And yeah, I just wish I can get in here to grab some of them.
((NATS/MUSIC))

Silver Art Residency decided, in its second year, to incorporate individuals that are affected by mass incarceration of mainly formerly incarcerated artists. We have three slots open every year for people who fit that criteria. And this first iteration of that is artist, Jesse Krimes, also my good friend. Mary Baxter is also my good friend. And Russell Craig, also one of my good friends. All formerly incarcerated, all in the nonprofit world, and all making contributions to end mass incarceration.
((NATS/MUSIC))

((Jared Owens
Artist))

And I'm into these found objects and they're everywhere, you know. I see beauty and I see a carceral aesthetic in a lot of these objects. I get a lot of feedback on the work and there's really…
((Courtesy: Jared Owens))
I don't try to message in the work, but they, you know, people extrapolate messages from the work on their own, and that's fine with me. It's fascinating to hear people, to have subject matter that's really dark, and then present it in a way that is more palatable to the eyes and to the senses, but it's still dark subject matter.
((Jared Owens
Artist))
The first time I saw this, this piece was in a reclamation yard. And the reclamation yard is in wine country in the North Fork of Long Island. So, I'm assuming that somebody had a, in a winery, you know, they commissioned somebody to build this thing, and then store wine in it, you know, bottles would have went this way. But, you know, when I see it, I see cells, I see tiers, I see prison, I see a carceral aesthetic that I just can't escape. It looks like it was designed as a prison.
((NATS/MUSIC))

((Jared Owens
Artist))
I never really think about…I just think about my practice as it's just going. I don't really think about past, present. There's no linear aspect to anything that I'm doing. It's kind of like a lot of happenstances in the work, and I'm just going with the flow. I don't have a calendar that says, “I'm going to be at this point, this point. Where will you be in five years?” I just, I try to live every day as if, you know, what am I doing today?
((NATS: Jared Owens))
I might mess with this today. See what comes of it.
((NATS/MUSIC))