May This Vessel Overflow: In the studio with February James
A little unsettling, elusive, and oddly satisfying, February James suspends you in a contrast of hues. Dangling from a provocative title line, you’re left to wonder and wait. Her style of painting, done in watercolor, acrylic, and oil pastel allude to a past life as a makeup artist. Though, she’s traded the ideal self for the blends and bleeds of veracity.
After years of interacting with her work completely online, an announcement for Gap Year, her second solo show at Tilton Gallery, drifted across my timeline.
From the building’s facade to its marble and mirrored vestibule, it was old-world glamor. Dramatic fireplaces, pristine white walls, and romantic crown moldings seemed a perfect house for the grit of emotion and experience displayed throughout. Once again playing with the dynamic of veneer versus verisimilitude.
I enjoyed everything until I read the exhibition description. Suddenly, February’s work was being likened to Byzantine icons and Renaissance altars, an attempt to illuminate family dynamics and how we honor the dead. I went from being visited by a griot in the first painting of the show to walking through European art history. Were there no other references rooted in the African diaspora to draw upon? As my father used to say, it was “half-assed and piss-poor.” And, I must admit I left feeling a little slighted. The work deserved more.
With another chance scroll, I learned February was visiting the Rubell Museum in her hometown of Washington, D.C. I took a deep breath and sent her a message. Little did I know, she was in town for more than a visit. Two weeks later I christened her new studio and conducted the following interview.
CMW: So, I was in the gallery and I was reading the press release and it was just like…. What are they talking about?
FJ: Yeah, when that show opened, I had just graduated and I was packing to move. I was on auto-pilot. The next show, I am going to be more hands on with what goes out. Because they took bits and pieces from other places but, there were some things that didn’t need to be said.
CMW: I definitely feel that. There is a lot going on with family dynamics and they [exhibition description] seem to jump right to an altar. Which I get but there is so much more happening… Can you talk to me about Make Our Dreams Synchronize and Love Is The Only Solution?? What was on your heart when you created these works?
FJ: I was thinking about family dynamics right, a lot of my work stems from what happens inside the four walls…. So I am always thinking about the framework. What it takes to make us. Like I have my son and I am pouring into him but he is still his own person. So for me, on one side there is a man and a woman and what could be a child, three. A unit, that’s how we are told to go out into the world and become. On the other is just women. A lot of the women in my family are single. Sometimes I wonder if the family dynamic was still together, would I have learned how to fight for love in a different way.
Make Our Dreams Synchronize also comes from my parents. They were both artists when they met in high school and when they became pregnant with me they were told to get a real job. My mother said they didn’t have money. They would just talk about their dreams all day but they never pursued those dreams because it didn’t feel safe. So it’s those two worlds I was reflecting back on.
CMW: That makes me think about the piece Who Nurtures the Provider’s Dreams? and that’s a really big question, so even though you are able to pursue your creative desires, in what ways do you feel like you may or may not be nurtured right now?
FJ: In L.A. it was easier to balance community, going “outside” and being inside. Out here it’s a little tougher because all of my friends and family are here and they all work at a desk job. Someone said, yea I feel like what you do is easy. So I think them not understanding when I say I can’t go out… and them feeling like it’s not really work. But, I can nurture myself thinking about going toward the things that really serve who I am today. Not who I was when I left, not who you think I was when I came back, who I am today. And, that really goes with this losing and rebirth and it's all mixed up. Now that so much of the noise is quiet, recognizing my own internal voice and honoring that.
CMW: So, what brought you back to D.C.?
FJ: My son. I would have still been in Los Angeles, he was struggling after covid with school, we came to D.C. often so he knew the family was here. I remember one time we came back and we were on Good Hope Road, at the Safeway over there, he came out and was like I’ve never seen so many black people in one place. A few years later he asked me, would you ever consider moving back to D.C. and said I want to be around my family and more people that look like me. He said that on New Year’s [2023] and we landed here in June.
CMW: Being from this area, you hear a lot of artists say they need to leave the city to make a name for themselves and oftentimes they don’t come back…how are you feeling about that for your career?
FJ: I don’t care about that. I can make work anywhere in the world. I’m just a vessel. The community is coming for the work. Whatever gallery is going to see the work is going to see the work. I don’t feel like a gallery needs to be exactly where I am.
CMW: What’s it like to have work in the Rubell Collection?
FJ: That has been quite surreal and I have to remember to sit in the moment sometimes. Before the work is to the point where it’s at a museum, I live with it for so long in my studio. By the time the public sees it so much time has passed so I always remember to come back to those moments because when I first started out I made a list of galleries I wanted to work with and collections I wanted to be in. Rubell was one of those collections. It was eleven years ago that I made this list. They could have acquired the work and had it hidden, to have it in their museum and in the place where I’m from is monumental. I made a post and I deleted it… I am working on vulnerability.
CMW: What’s on your list now, what are you manifesting for the future?
FJ: Titles are great and I took some writing classes, my mom was a natural writer. I feel like I put so much into the paintings and I take the titles and squish them down. I want to work on expanding those words… There’s still so much more to say.
CMW: I mean those titles are so thought provoking. I love them. Back to the family dynamic, “You Finally Got Burned By All Them Fires You’ve Been Setting” sounds like a read from your auntie or grandma.
FJ: I love to reaaadddd.
CMW: Or, “I Wonder If Her Body Knows That Her Face Is Lying?”
FJ: We’ve all been there.
CMW: We have! So, who are some of these people? Are they your family members?
FJ: Family, friends, I’m hearing things…that one I pulled out of a story I wrote about a person. I was trying to use my words the same way I paint. But I could be cleaning and titles just pop into my head. I used to try to write them down because I was scared I would lose it but one of my teachers told me if it’s yours it’s yours. When I take my hands off the wheel, where my mind is not present, that’s when I get those titles.
CMW: Before you paint, you’ve already decided what the title is going to be?
FJ: Sometimes the titles are first, like I have a few already but sometimes the titles come while or after I am painting.
CMW: It’s interesting because they are kind of like a track listing.
FJ: Yea and my father’s background is music so maybe those expanded words go into that world. I do always feel like they could be in a song.
CMW: I imagine people are caught off guard by the way you paint, how do you decide to use color?
FJ: I don’t really decide, I just make a mess [laughs] I think there is so much in my environment that I need to control, have to control, being in the studio and not having to limit myself or say this is what it’s going to be gives me a lot more freedom. Anytime I have gone in like I'm just going to use these two colors, it’s never turned out that way. And, working with watercolor… you cannot control.. I love watercolor, but it always reminds me, the moment I am trying to control, I have to stop. And, water is so powerful. It can be a stream, a trickle or it can take everything out. I just let it do its thing. The face is in the page. I just bring it out.
