ABOUT
"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."
-Gustav Mahler
Statement:
I create a visual lexicon of my own design, using folk pattern languages from my family’s histories, to talk about identity, place and time as a Midwesterner of European descent. My work is informed by a Neurodivergent lens that actively shapes my experience and grows out of a sort of obsession with the geometric organizing principles in nature. Painting on round wooden and ceramic forms, I speak in knotwork, mazes, C and S strokes, spirals, symbols and color; to weave stories about organic cycles that historically informed the traditional arts and how disruptions to these cycles have created a glitch in the pattern. I am interested in exploring ways we might restore a sense of continuity, despite ongoing social and climatic shifts toward an unknowable future.
Bio:
Jeanine Malec is an organically occurring artist. Having benefitted from a Scandinavian-style, free-range childhood, she was often left to her own devices to explore the limestone bluffs of the upper St. Croix River valley. This setting was an education in seasonal cycles, ecological niches and relationship with landscape. In addition to these formative experiences in nature, she hails from a family of makers and has always been at home with the sensory experiences of working stone, metal and wood. Some of her extended family members practiced ceramics, basketry and embroidery. Others worked in Norwegian Rosemaling, taught Celtic knotwork or practiced Pysanky egging with neighbors in Winona.
Seeing their examples inspired her to develop a discerning eye and an ear for the stories embedded within each form. They helped her learn to value materiality, technique and an appreciation for traditional arts. Having subsequently spent the better part of 20 years in South Minneapolis, her work is also informed by the rich current of cultural reclamation that has grown out of decades of community explorations in rootedness around Powderhorn Park. Jeanine attended the College of Visual Arts, holds an MFA in Ecological Architecture from Vesper College and currently teaches knotwork at Celtic Junction and Norway House. Her practice explores material culture and pattern languages, informed by the intersection of folklore and landscape.
“Stop thinking about artworks as objects and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences”
– Brian Eno
About the Name and Logo
The name Nest & Tessellate comes from a passage in Bill Mollison's 'Permaculture Manual'. Permaculture is a farming practice that imitates how nature grows - in trophic layers and guilds. Every system supports every other in balance, creating a kind of synergy that produces abundantly and in healthier ways than in colonial Monoculture. The logo is also derived from the principles of Permaculture, and illustrates how each element in nature fits within an intelligent pattern, tessellating across 2 dimensional space and nesting within 3 dimensions. I use the name and logo as a jumping off point to talk about how both nature and culture are systems; everything can work together to support an abundant world if we prioritize these goals. The design also directly demonstrates folk art patterns that have emerged from natural exemplars.