Short Answer Sunday: Rachel Jeffers

Meant to elicit quick, intuitive responses, Short Answer Sunday will introduce readers to a wide variety of artists, educators, writers, curators, art enthusiasts and art adjacent individuals whose inclinations I admire. With the intent of getting to know the person behind the artwork as well generating new avenues to artistic discovery, participants may respond with only a few words or an artist’s name, always with the opportunity to elaborate if they wish!

What a delight to get lost in a painting, to be confused and amused and surrender to color, form, pattern, light. Rachel Jeffers’ painterly still lifes offer so much of this smart, giddy, retinal pleasure. Sinks & dishes, lunches about to be eaten, a fried egg in a luminous skillet (the sleepy, muted spatula next to this orange glow really gets me), floral arrangements, slinking house cats, puzzles in process, and the reflective glow of Christmas lights (a personal favorite) are all explored and elevated in Rachel’s compositions. The paintings’ surfaces contain traces of the painting process, in which marks and forms are built, layered, or obliterated over time (sharing a bit of kinship with Richter’s Tisch).

The subjects in Rachel’s paintings may be casual domestic scenes, however they are developed in such a way that they become extraordinary worlds. In these worlds, mimesis and playful expression mingle, and pictorial depth expands and collapses. In her interview, Rachel shares that she would like to live in one of Vuillard’s interiors for a week (fully support this). If given the opportunity, I would like to live in one of Rachel’s paintings and I’d choose this one. Just look for me in the middle, playing in the paint.

Last week, I saw Rachel’s phenomenal show Monday Alchemy at Foyer and highly recommend that all those in the Richmond area make a trip to see her work in person. The show is up through May 29, with an artist talk on May 21 . A friend of the blog, Rachel was also interviewed on Art Habit by Nikki in 2023 (check it out, if you missed it). I so appreciate Rachel’s honest and insightful responses for Short Answer Sunday and I know that you will, too.

For more about Rachel Jeffers and her work, head on over to her website and follow her on Instagram.

xo, Lauren

Name: Rachel Jeffers
Occupation: Artist
Astrological data: Scorpio sun, Virgo moon, Taurus rising
Hometown: Tennessee
Current location: Richmond, VA

Other than Instagram, how do you find new-to-you artists?

When artists I like are in group shows, I look up the other artists in the show, which often leads me to more galleries, and then to more artists.

An artwork that makes you laugh?

The Ham by Paul Gauguin. The first time I saw this at The Phillips Collection, I was fresh out of grad school, and going through a lot of turmoil about what painting is for. The message I had absorbed was that for art to be meaningful, it had to be ‘Important’. I turned the corner and came upon this absurd painting - of course still life has been around forever, but there was something so surprising about the formality with which he treated a slab of ham. This painting reminded me that there are many ways for painting to have meaning.

Paul Gauguin, The Ham, 1889, oil on canvas, 19 3/4 x 22 3/4 in

An artwork that makes you cry?

I have a hard time looking at Picasso’s Guernica.

Most underrated artist?

Childe Hassam. Georges Braque

An artwork that you’d like to live inside for a week?

Any of Vuillard’s interiors. I’d especially like if I could blend into the wallpaper and just observe without being noticed.

Edouard Vuillard, The Flowered Dress, 1891, oil on canvas, 38 x 46 cm

An artist whose work you can’t stop thinking about?

Lisa Sanditz has been a favorite since I saw her show Sock City at CRG Gallery in 2008.

What’s your favorite characteristic in an artwork?

Color, evidence of the hand, seeing residue of the painter’s decision-making process, and ideally, a composition that arrives at an unexpected solution in combining all of these elements

What’s an artwork that doesn’t look like art?

I really like Richard Tuttle’s work.

Richard Tuttle, Sylva Head, 2020, plywood, spray paint, wood glue, and nails, 21 x 15 1/8 x 2 inches

Fav monograph or art book?

Drawings of Jim Dine
Cindy Sherman The Complete Untitled Film Stills
Tina Barney Theater of Manners
Alex Katz Collages
The Hours of Catherine of Cleves

Fav museum or gallery in your current location?

VMFA

An artwork that packs a spiritual punch?

Alison Hall’s paintings. You have to see them in person. Fra Angelico Entombment

An artwork that you’d like to see before you die?

I would’ve answered Impression Sunrise by Monet, but I got to see that last year when it came to DC. Another answer would’ve been Sargent’s The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit but I saw that in Boston in 2019. I think next on my list has to be Matisse’s Woman with a Hat.

What art material do you love to nerd out on?

Color wheels and color charts. My training in color theory was based on the Munsell System. It reminds me of a lot of musical scales and music theory. I don’t understand why everyone isn’t as excited as I am about color wheels.

What was the last thing that you listened to in the studio?

I’ve had Grimes’s 2020 album, Miss Anthropecene on a constant loop for the past couple of months.

What’s a book that changed your life?

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain

What song, book, podcast or film do you think everyone should know about?

2 books that made a huge impact on me are Deborah Tannen’s That’s Not What I Meant! and You Just Don’t Understand
They’re not art books, but they’re about language, and the subtle differences in communication styles that lead to misunderstandings. I love anything to do with linguistics, grammar, and psychology. It’s one thing I really enjoy about painting, the infinite number of ways there are to say one thing.

❤

Rachel Jeffers holds an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art's Mount Royal School of Art and a BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design. She studied with Turps Correspondence Course and is now a course mentor. Her work has been exhibited throughout the Eastern US, with recent appearances at Shockoe Artspace, Stay Home Gallery, and My Pet Ram. Her current solo show, Monday Alchemy, is on view at Foyer Gallery until May 29. She is a member of Zeuxis: A Collective of Still Life Painters. She lives and works in the Richmond, VA area.

You can find out more about Rachel Jeffers and her work on her website and on Instagram.

Interview with Rachel Jeffers: Painting and Passing Notes

Installation view of "Knock Turn" at Shockoe Artspace

I have been a fan of Rachel Jeffers’s work since I first saw it in McLean Project for the Arts’ "Strictly Painting" show in 2019. After meeting at the exhibition’s opening, I’ve gotten to know Rachel, and while I have been impressed by her sincerity and her work ethic, her solo show, “Knock Turn” at Shockoe Artspace blew me away. (It is on view through July.)

Rachel’s show of fifty paintings is full of surprises, and there is a sense of serious, yet playful discovery in her variety of material applications. Coupled with the works’ shifting figure-ground relationships, hazy atmospheres, and references to everyday objects, it makes for a viewing experience rich with the mundane-turned-magical.

Rachel is also involved in several unique artist communities, one of which being the publication Passing Notes. I asked her to answer a few questions for Art Habit to spread the word about her wonderful exhibition and how she is creating opportunities for other artists.

-Nikki/Art Habit

"Knock/Turn", oil on panel, 20" x 16", 2023

Art Habit: How did you decide you wanted to be an artist?

Rachel Jeffers: I don’t remember consciously making this decision; I always said I was going to be an artist. But the first time I remember seeing myself as an artist was in first grade. We were told to think of a story we knew and design a book cover for it. My sister had just played the part of Little Miss Muffet in her third-grade play the night before, so that’s the story I chose. I remember the excitement of knowing exactly what I wanted to make, and then sitting at my desk making it. I can still picture where my desk was positioned in the classroom, and then it’s like the entire world fell away as I worked. Later, I saw my drawing posted on the cafeteria wall, and it had been awarded a blue ribbon! The recognition was meaningful at that age because it felt like confirmation that this thing that had brought me such joy was the right fit for me.

"Steam", oil on clayboard, 11" x 14", 2023

AH: How do you choose what to paint? What kinds of subjects or ideas inspire you to make a painting?

RJ: The ideal scenario is when I’m already deep into a body of work and new ideas for paintings are prompted by the work I’m making. There are so many decisions involved in the process of making a single painting – each choice could take things in an entirely new direction. It’s like parallel worlds that could just keep going infinitely. Another thing that happens when I’m absorbed in a body of work is that I begin to look at my everyday environment with a painter’s eye, and more and more subjects begin to seem relevant.

If I’m between projects, or looking to change to a new subject, I have found that it’s dangerous for me to overthink it too much. It’s better to just start painting. I try to pay attention to what I pay attention to in my everyday life, and then use that as a jumping off point. Once I start painting, the work will generate its own inspiration, or - more likely - its own problems that I feel compelled to solve.

"Cut Flowers", oil on clayboard, 9" x 12", 2022

AH: How do you think about “beauty” as related to the work you make?

RJ: I’m more interested in metaphor than I am in beauty. Some paintings are more beautiful than others but for me, the most interesting painting is one that prompts thought, or holds attention – art as a form of visual poetry. A painting is the direct result of my level of engagement with the materials and with the world around me at the time that it was made. Attentive, honest engagement, for me, is the aim.

 

"By the Light", oil on 2 panels, 11" x 14" and 7.25" x 6.28", 2020

AH: What are you currently reading that you’re excited about? What books do you like to recommend to other artists (and why)?

RJ: Three books I’m excited about right now are: The Pensive Image by Hanneke Grootenboer – it is about art as a form of thinking and explores the way looking at paintings prompts thought; Ways of Drawing from the Royal Drawing School has some really great contributions from a variety of artists about the practice and purpose of drawing; The Master and His Emissary, by Iain McGilchrist, about how the divided brain hemispheres work together and how their structure in the brain impacts our world and culture. I’ve always been fascinated by the left brain/right brain divide, and how this influences the process of making art and talking about art.

Other favorite art books include Mysteries of the Rectangle by Siri Hustvedt - I appreciate this book from the point of view of a writer, attempting to translate a visual experience into words. I recommend Looking at the Overlooked by Norman Bryson to anyone interested in still life painting, and the last chapter of the book in particular Still Life and Feminine Space which is about masculine versus feminine approaches to composing paintings. The Art Spirit by Robert Henri is a lovely book for painters. My all-time favorite art writer is Rudolf Arnheim, who breaks down the psychology of images in a thorough, dense, but still approachable way, particularly in the books Visual Thinking and Art and Visual Perception. And I have to mention The Alphabet Versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain, which explores the impact of left brain (masculine) versus right brain (feminine) values throughout the history of various cultures, and the ways in which the prioritization of one set of values over the other has set the world off balance.

                                                 

AH: How would you describe Passing Notes for readers who are unfamiliar with it? How did it come to exist?

RJ: Passing Notes is a magazine that showcases the writing of visual artists. In 2021 I took an online writing class with NYC Crit Club. The class was made up of artists who enjoy writing and were looking to develop our skills and connect with others who share our love of words and images. We were excited about the writing that was being created – there’s so much thoughtful writing out there that artists do that is never seen by anyone. So a group of us created Passing Notes to serve as a platform for artists who write. We see this as a way to build community and dialogue among a wide range of artists who are making work but who aren’t necessarily being shown in big galleries or written about in art publications. We are currently in the production process for Issue 3, which will be released this fall. Issues 1 and 2 can be found online, or you can order a print copy through our website.

 

"Cul-de-sac", oil on panel, 9" x 12", 2021 

AH: What advice do you have for artists who are considering how they might create opportunities for other artists?

RJ: Just get started! You can learn and build as you go. I think it’s easy to assume that we’ll be judged harshly when we try something new but in reality, when it’s something you’ve put your heart into, people will sense your passion and most people will be generous and supportive. Many artists are in need of community so if you see a specific need out there that you think you can help fill, your efforts will be of value to someone.

"Setting", oil on panel, 16" x 12", 2022

AH: What is coming up for you that you’d like to spread the word about? Where are online places readers can learn more about you and your work?

RJ: I’ll be giving an artist talk on July 29 at Shockoe Artspace in Richmond, VA. My work can be seen on my website at www.racheljeffers.com and on Instagram @racheljeffersstudio. Passing Notes' website is www.wannapassnotes.com and our Instagram is @_passingnotes.

Thank you, Rachel, for taking the time to share about your work!

**All images courtesy/copyright the artist.**