Description of Work

Potpourri Folx 1-8 Series

Blooming at 100 - Digital drawing/ Digital Collage  8 x 10 - $45.00

Dress Up - Digital drawing/ Digital Collage  8 x 10 -$45.00

Sleeping Lion - Digital drawing/ Digital Collage  8 x 10 -$45.00

Artist's Statement

During the pandemic, art has protected my mental health. Creating is something I must do. Poetry, drawing, poetry comics, embroidery, and all of the art I do is done because I must do it. I cannot imagine a life without creating art. I share it so viewers feel in their gut what I feel while creating. Maybe we can connect through my work. That is important to me—That I can connect with others through art, image, and text. The motivation for my current artwork is about self-sufficiency, the ways art can present the self as enough during difficult times. These potpourri Folx represent worlds and identities of inclusion. Potpourri is also a mixture and inclusion of dried petals, flowers, and spices, and these folx embody some of that too. 

Folx is an adaption and reconsideration of the traditional spelling of "Folks". It is offered as "Folx" as a collective way to refer to people in marginalized communities, including those in the LGBTQ community, black community, and those in many marginalized communities. Because language impacts how we view the world, and thus how we behave, recognizing and addressing the spelling of "folx" is a way to recognize our need to expand openness and eliminate marginalization of any group of people or any individual. 

About the Artist

Jessica Dawn Zinz is a QRF associate professor in the English Department, teaching WRIT and Creative Writing. She is a writer and artist living on the outskirts of Bowling Green, Ohio. She has a Creative Writing MFA and her poetry has been published in literary journals. As well, most recently, she has a "covid themed" poetry comic forthcoming in "This Quarantine Life" published by The Art Students League of New York and 9 hybrid poems/ image+text poems forthcoming in Harpy Hybrid Review, in addition to the cover art for issue 2. She is currently working on visual poetry, comics poetry, collage, and other hybrid writing and art. Some of her work can also be found on her Instagram: @jessicadawnzinzart

Artist's Social Media