An Interview with artist Tom Jean Webb

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Tell us who you are and what you do? 

I’m an artist originally born in a town just outside of London. My family had routes in East London, owning and operating scrap yards, eventually moving out to the countryside. I now spend much of my time traveling and being influenced by the American Southwest. I’m interested in the role creativity and art have in society but also in an individual sense. What it can mean emotionally and spiritually to make or express one’s self through a medium. Where the lines lie between art and maker, where life or creativity starts and which is leading which. How art can be a form of communication but also allow room for discovery, that it can be an opportunity to allow someone to feel. The fact a sound or line can instigate and emotion. How as the artist I can feel something, put that into an artwork and a viewer can then feel that emotion is so fascinating. My work is inspired by the American landscape. This came from my grandad’s influence, from a young age his house fascinated me. It was decorated with all sorts of Americana, artifacts and memorabilia. The simple fact that he found such joy in a culture that existed outside of his own, and the way that he adopted this through his fashion or ideas, is something that has had a big effect on me.

Is there any type of specific iconography that you use throughout your work, and how did you develop that? 

I feel like there's lots of story telling in my work. I love the idea of a visual language and how this can portray a narrative. I see my individual works as frames of one long continual film. When these frames are laid out together then patterns emerge. Objects, colors and shapes all start to inform each other. I’m trying to have a conversation with the viewer, I’m fascinated by the idea that I can have a feeling or emotion, happy it to my work and then have that feeling or emotion transported into the viewer. The way a sound can travel from instrument into the body of the listener. I developed it through study and play. on one hand understanding art history and the way art had been used to represent different cultures, movements and ideologies. But also trying to be in tune with the feelings I felt during the creative process as well as attempting to understand my work upon reflection. What did past works mean in context to my physical and emotional state.

If I break my work down in this way, then all of it, to some degree, is iconography in some way. It’s all an expression and communication of something. My pieces allude to a fictional time, ceremony, culture, place of escapism, feeling or folklore that are expressed within the materials of my objects. My representations of this place or idea do not fit into a given time period or specific social or political matter, but rather become something more timeless and multi-referential. The adopted repetition that exists within the work is done to instigate a relationship between the works as a whole, referencing the idea of mass communication and continued narrative, to begin to develop the understanding of elements contained within the singular pieces and solemnity to these symbols.

Color has always been important to me and my work. How it can be indicative of a place, time and feeling. Not only for the artwork but also for me, how I’m feeling and reflection that has in the colors I use. It’s always fun to look over work I’ve made and make correlations between emotions, stories and the colors used.

How does your environment affect your work? 

I believe one’s environment has a huge influence on their artistic practice. I think the layers of this can be quite complex. In many ways, my earliest understanding of this was understood in a backwards sense; I was driven to escape my surroundings through the process of creation. Transporting myself to a place that existed in thought and then created on paper. This was the driving force until there was a decision to follow my creations to a physical landscape. Then I was inspired to explore, completing the circle of life, land and creation. My childhood was full of environments that promoted creation. To this day, when I visit home one of the first things my mum will say is ‘right, what shall we make’. 

Art and craft were always a huge part of my upbringing and most days revolved around this in one way or another. My mum is a curtain maker, clothes maker and upholster who worked from home and my Grandad (who lived two doors down) built and restored motorcycles and cars, so I saw first hand the joy of making something based on a passion for that subject. The idea that love of a subject could be expressed in craft or production. I also struggled in school quite a bit, especially with reading and writing. I often feel I developed in art early on as means to express myself as I struggled in ways that others didn’t.

My grandad was a fan of all things American, so his house was a museum for Americana. We spent a lot of time together, he bought me my first Stetson as kid. We would sit and watch westerns together, I even remember looking through maps of the South West, reading out names of places, expressing to each other how magical it all sounded. When I would sit and draw, these were the places I took myself to and so it felt quite natural to make the work I did. Eventually it got to the the point where I wanted to go to these places, to use my work as means to travel and experience, to allow that to influence my work back. To start and real dialogue between the imagined and the reality, to see what this and I could achieve. Ultimately, it’s been the best decision I could have made. The places and people I’ve met have made what I do very special, and a constant source of inspiration. In a more day-to-day sense, I like my studio to allow for moments of silence and retreat, so all outside world distractions seem far away and I can be left to play. One can often try and find a pattern in creativity, but I think it’s most important and essential to be open and listen for moments of inspiration, because they are so beautifully surprising. I find silence allows you to hear those moments more clearly.

What is currently inspiring you? 

At the moment I think more than anything I’m interested in the idea of space. How to create space in artwork. To create work that allows someone to find room to breathe, to participate and discover.  That negative space can say the most. It’s an idea of saying something through the process of taking away, a voice through silence. That in a song it’s the silent moments that make the sounds. I often think of an idea of full stops in artworks, I want to avoid my work having all stops. So the sentence has no end. I also really enjoy keeping in moments of error, that these moments can allow for some sort of imbalance. But that this imbalance is necessary in trying to create beauty. Where a painter stops is so defining so I’m really enjoying playing with that point, what exists before and or after that point. I often find myself returning and re-investigating subjects if interest. At the moment I'm loving collecting books about quilts, specifically those of communities and periods in time.

Do you have anything in your Spiritual Toolkit? (I consider a spiritual toolkit anything that keeps you grounded and sane during this time. It can be physical or mental) 

For me, it's stones. There is a temperature to stones that I find soothing. When you touch a naturally cool stone, it emanates something primal, that only an organic material can. Man-made materials don't have the ability to hold nature’s forces like those of the natural landscape. I like to collect small rock mementos from my hikes, some stay with me just for the walk and others make it back to my studio. I often will have a little stone in my pocket on a day-to-day basis to help inspire and sooth.

Is there anything you are currently obsessed with?

I often find myself returning and re-investigating subjects of interest. They become ongoing waves of obsession. At the moment, I'm back to collecting books about quilts, specifically those of communities and periods in time.

Also, my neighbors chicken is becoming an obsession, it often comes around to visit, waiting to be fed and will sit staring at me as I sketch on the porch whilst chatting away to it. 

http://www.tomjeanwebb.com/

@tomjeanwebb

InterviewJessica Goldfond