Jessie McClanahan hails from the forests and coal fields of southern West Virginia, surrounded by lands both vehemently protected, or carelessly destroyed by industry. Her works highlight how geography, economy, and culture exert a gravity on one another; creating a felt experience that shapes her interdisciplinary arts practice. Her works are rooted in a foundation of storytelling, folk art, research, and a scientific curiosity of the natural world.

 

Using her background from rural Appalachia as a lens to work through, McClanahan's art is a response to the destruction of the environment, and the grief that arises from it. With the Appalachian Identity she holds as being a guiding principle in her work she often times addresses the stereotypes associated with mountain folks. This leads her to constantly question the hierarchies that humans use to separate ourselves from each other, as well as the environments and other organisms that we live with. 

 

McClanahan positions the natural world as a backdrop and collaborator in her varied practice. Some of her works become vessels in which Fungi and Plants become collaborators, growing on top of and within the structures she creates. While for other pieces she utilizes plants and fungi to direct print, dye, or create pigments that become parts of larger installations. This direct tie to land is made evident in her ceramics works with casted creatures and the use of wild clays. 

 

The continuous thread throughout all of her work comes from the craft traditions, Folk Art, and Kitchen witch’n practices of Appalachia. Primarily McClanahan works with realms of ceramics, textiles, and printmaking to create her layered installations and sculptures. With such a varied and reaching practice she views the making process as a site of alchemic collaboration between not only different traditions of art making, but with other people and organisms; celebrating the fumbles and success of living in community with one another.