The Dirt Bag Sisters are Lost and Found: New work from Karie Jane and Jes Le Bon

Friday, June 7, 2024
6:00 PM 10:00 PM 18:00 22:00

Make.Shift Art Space 306 Flora St Bellingham, WA, 98225 (map)

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Karie Jane & Jes le Bon have been throwing art shows together under the moniker “the Dirtbag Sisters” since 2016. This exhibit features intricate illustrations, sculpture from found and salvaged material, photographs, installation, fiber art and more. The work is about the process of losing one’s self and then finding that self again, using art-making for its transformative power as a catalyst for positive change, documenting the sometimes grueling process of growth.

5pm-9pm

Free & all-ages

Make.Shift Art Space

306 Flora St.

Bellingham, 98225

NO BOOZE NO DRUGS NO JERKS

Artist Statement from Jes:

I grew up doing crafts; it’s how I learned to occupy my time. My mom was an artist and I was surrounded by a gaggle of prolific, proficient women who taught me all they knew. In this way, I learned early on to move through life with my hands. In the power of creation, I could make something from nothing, which was a rare kind of wealth I knew not everyone possessed. These days, in the absence of those matriarchs, I stay connected to them through making. These threads are a direct channel to the female mentors who have guided me throughout my life.

This work represents my movement through some of the most trying times of my life. In my deepest sorrow and anguish, my hands continued to move, still making stitches when I could barely find reasons to continue. Much of my work is made in fragments, squares, links; I may not have the ambition or drive to make a whole piece, but I know I can make one small effort towards an idea. In that way, I have been able to keep making and working towards larger works one small piece at a time. Through this making I have been able to move through my struggles, coming out of the darkness and aligning myself with ancestors who made stitches just like me. These ritualistic objects become meditations on self-love and self-care. As each piece reaches completion, I believe in myself and my own capabilities a little more. I’m part of a larger community, and in this I feel held.

Most of this work is made from found objects: my cut up wedding dress, a tattered tarp from my yard, some discarded sheets, tile found in a bucket in the woods where I live. I move through the world finding the discards and using them as prompts; they trigger my imagination to think about what is possible, to find creative solutions to “garbage” and beautify my surroundings. To me, each piece of trash represents a puzzle waiting to be solved.

This work is about me. It’s about finding my queerness, about my struggles with body dysphoria, about female beauty standards and finding my true gender identity. It’s about ADHD, and what that manifests as in an artist’s practice. It’s about being poor and scraping by, bottom feeding through life and finding value in the world’s abandoned things. It’s about spirits and ghosts, about seeking a direct line to my dead loved ones. It’s about codependency and family and love and joy and worry, so much worry that it almost kills you. It's about trust and disappointment, desperation and jealousy. It’s about ecstasy and sex and fetish and lust and imagination. It’s about social media & technology, both the good and the bad parts. It’s about learning to ask for help, about rock bottom. It’s about acknowledging the love around you, about the messiness and beauty of life. It’s about enduring friendship, and when friends become family. It’s all so overwhelming sometimes, but finding beauty amidst the rubble is a superpower. Thanks for looking, for being here to witness me, this work. Hopefully, one thing or another will resonate. We’re in this together, let us not forget it.

Jes