Jessica Laurel Reese was spawned by two artists in Novato, California, a day after the biggest flood of the century. She was raised in a Victorian farmhouse in equestrian county whose basement housed Studio 311, a fine jewelry business that her parents owned and ran for decades and continues to create intaglio wedding bands today. Inspired by creativity transpiring in her own dwelling, Reese turned to creativity herself at a very young age. Her mother, a former design professor at the Gemological Institute of America, nurtured her interest in the arts and began teaching her to draw at the kitchen table at the age of nine. Reese began taking formal painting lessons when she was 12 and worked exclusively in two dimensions until she discovered sculpture as a young adult.
Jessica studied sculpture at College of Marin (COM) for three years where she was formally trained in the different means of adhering metals. Drawn to the rhythm and alchemy of using fire to melt metal, she gravitated toward the use of oxygen and acetylene gases to create her works and had become proficient at torch use while working as a goldsmith for her family business. It was at COM that she discovered the concept of using steel rod to fabricate form, and she fabricated three larger-than-life steel figure sculptures while there before she transferred to a formal art school. She was granted the Marge C. Cutler Award for Excellence in Sculpture by her mentor at College of Marin, Emily Lazarre, before leaving the comfort of her local community college to expand her creative skills.
She was awarded a scholarship to California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco, CA, where she would milk her creative juices for the next three years and be rocked by the expansive means of expressing herself that a formal art institution provides. She worked in many media at CCA, ranging from interactive light and sound installation art to printmaking to performance art to quilts. Reese graduated with Distinction from CCA in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, and then left fine art behind and put down her creative tools after six years of exercising them for scholastic gain.
Jessica began working in human services after graduation and was deeply satisfied by the altruistic satisfaction that came with being of service to others. While working in service, she continued to figure draw, using her friends as models for longer poses. She created the drawing for the model, allowing their nudity to be captured not by photography, which can stimulate self-deprecation of one’s appearance, but by the hand of a fellow female, which promoted improved acceptance of their inherent and abundant beauty. Reese enjoyed the healing that came from this process and drew dozens of her friends over the next many years.
Solidifying her dedication to human services, Jessica decided to pursue a career in nursing, which was not practical to obtain while living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Committed to the dream of being a nurse, she packed up in the spring of 2009 and relocated to Sedona, AZ, where her mother and stepfather had retired, and then eventually relocated to Jerome, AZ. She attended Yavapai College and graduated nursing school in 2013 as the Outstanding Student in Nursing for the academic year and president of the Student Nurse Association. Her nursing career led her into holistic psych nursing, which she practiced at private inpatient behavioral health centers until choosing to expand her education and pursue a graduate degree, granting her an Advanced Practice license as a Family Nurse Practitioner in 2021. She currently practices medicine at an integrated medical office in Prescott, serving others in the most satisfying way she has ever known.
Reese reconnected with her creative pursuits after moving to Arizona, which have involved two lines of jewelry, more figure drawings, paintings, photography, performance poetry and event hosting. She was offered a solo show of her figure drawings at a Jerome art gallery in 2014. Tasked with framing the works for the wall, Reese picked up a welding torch for the first time in a decade and welded steel rod to create frames into which the drawings were sewn. The frames received such positive reception that Reese eventually expanded the steel lines into the entire canvas and started creating abstract work for the wall. She soon began representing her undying fascination of the human body in her welded steel drawings, which has taken her on an incredible journey of working larger than ever before and into creative territory that represents her in galleries across the state.
She finds immense delight in taking a hard industrial material and bending it by hand to encapsulate the softness of female curves. She states “I love that I can go into my studio, look at a pile of steel sticks that I bought in an industrial steel shop, and can bend them into something beautiful. I love using line to generate plane and am amazed at how little is truly needed to translate shape that can be recognized and identified at first glance.” She also finds that two polar passions, such as practicing medicine and fabricating sculpture, can mirror themselves so fully. “Making a figure sculpture that is larger than life involves leaning in close and dealing with the details while also stepping back and looking at the big picture,” she says. “Diagnosing and treating a healthcare complaint is very similar because I am obtaining a thorough history of an illness with all of its details and stepping back to look at them together to ascertain the image that they form as a whole.”
You can find her in her studio in Jerome on the weekends, welding in the old boiler room for the grocery store that served the Barrio in Jerome’s heyday. If you hear someone singing loudly to George Michael or The Black Crowes and hear the pop of a welding torch lighting, then you’ve found Jessica Laurel Reese.
Jessica studied sculpture at College of Marin (COM) for three years where she was formally trained in the different means of adhering metals. Drawn to the rhythm and alchemy of using fire to melt metal, she gravitated toward the use of oxygen and acetylene gases to create her works and had become proficient at torch use while working as a goldsmith for her family business. It was at COM that she discovered the concept of using steel rod to fabricate form, and she fabricated three larger-than-life steel figure sculptures while there before she transferred to a formal art school. She was granted the Marge C. Cutler Award for Excellence in Sculpture by her mentor at College of Marin, Emily Lazarre, before leaving the comfort of her local community college to expand her creative skills.
She was awarded a scholarship to California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco, CA, where she would milk her creative juices for the next three years and be rocked by the expansive means of expressing herself that a formal art institution provides. She worked in many media at CCA, ranging from interactive light and sound installation art to printmaking to performance art to quilts. Reese graduated with Distinction from CCA in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, and then left fine art behind and put down her creative tools after six years of exercising them for scholastic gain.
Jessica began working in human services after graduation and was deeply satisfied by the altruistic satisfaction that came with being of service to others. While working in service, she continued to figure draw, using her friends as models for longer poses. She created the drawing for the model, allowing their nudity to be captured not by photography, which can stimulate self-deprecation of one’s appearance, but by the hand of a fellow female, which promoted improved acceptance of their inherent and abundant beauty. Reese enjoyed the healing that came from this process and drew dozens of her friends over the next many years.
Solidifying her dedication to human services, Jessica decided to pursue a career in nursing, which was not practical to obtain while living in the San Francisco Bay Area. Committed to the dream of being a nurse, she packed up in the spring of 2009 and relocated to Sedona, AZ, where her mother and stepfather had retired, and then eventually relocated to Jerome, AZ. She attended Yavapai College and graduated nursing school in 2013 as the Outstanding Student in Nursing for the academic year and president of the Student Nurse Association. Her nursing career led her into holistic psych nursing, which she practiced at private inpatient behavioral health centers until choosing to expand her education and pursue a graduate degree, granting her an Advanced Practice license as a Family Nurse Practitioner in 2021. She currently practices medicine at an integrated medical office in Prescott, serving others in the most satisfying way she has ever known.
Reese reconnected with her creative pursuits after moving to Arizona, which have involved two lines of jewelry, more figure drawings, paintings, photography, performance poetry and event hosting. She was offered a solo show of her figure drawings at a Jerome art gallery in 2014. Tasked with framing the works for the wall, Reese picked up a welding torch for the first time in a decade and welded steel rod to create frames into which the drawings were sewn. The frames received such positive reception that Reese eventually expanded the steel lines into the entire canvas and started creating abstract work for the wall. She soon began representing her undying fascination of the human body in her welded steel drawings, which has taken her on an incredible journey of working larger than ever before and into creative territory that represents her in galleries across the state.
She finds immense delight in taking a hard industrial material and bending it by hand to encapsulate the softness of female curves. She states “I love that I can go into my studio, look at a pile of steel sticks that I bought in an industrial steel shop, and can bend them into something beautiful. I love using line to generate plane and am amazed at how little is truly needed to translate shape that can be recognized and identified at first glance.” She also finds that two polar passions, such as practicing medicine and fabricating sculpture, can mirror themselves so fully. “Making a figure sculpture that is larger than life involves leaning in close and dealing with the details while also stepping back and looking at the big picture,” she says. “Diagnosing and treating a healthcare complaint is very similar because I am obtaining a thorough history of an illness with all of its details and stepping back to look at them together to ascertain the image that they form as a whole.”
You can find her in her studio in Jerome on the weekends, welding in the old boiler room for the grocery store that served the Barrio in Jerome’s heyday. If you hear someone singing loudly to George Michael or The Black Crowes and hear the pop of a welding torch lighting, then you’ve found Jessica Laurel Reese.