Threads

Jae Jarrell was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1935. Her love for art and creating started because of her grandfather, who was a professional tailor, and her uncle, who was a haberdasher. Soon after, Jarrell taught herself how to make clothes by teaching herself about fabrics and sewing. She attended Bowling Green State University before meeting her husband Wadsworth Jarrell at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. 

Jarrell is most known for her appearance in influence during the Black Arts Movement during the 1960s. Her famous works include, The Revolutionary Suit (1968), Ebony Family (1968), Frock You (1994), and Urban Wall Suit (1969).  Her main goal with her work was to show African Americans and other African descendants in a positive light rather than negative. In 1968,  Wadsworth Jarrell, Jeff Donaldson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Gerald Williams, and Jae Jarrell founded AfriCOBRA in Chicago. AfriCOBRA stands for the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists, and their main goal was to showcase art that displayed energy, power, and other positive qualities in the African Diaspora. Jarrell created revolutionary artworks that corresponded to AfriCOBRA’s views. In many of Jarrell’s works, there is a recurring theme: bright colors. This is because of the encouragement from AfriCOBRA. As a collective, AfriCOBRA referred to the bright colors as “Coolade”, a play on the popular beverage, “Kool Aid”. They encouraged the use of bring colors to showcase positivity in the African diaspora. The use of bright colors can be seen in her works including, Ebony Family (1968), The Urban Wall Vest (1995), and The Gents Great Coat (1973). Soon, she started to expand her interests which included garment making, sculptures, wood working, and painting. 

I named this Exhibition “Threads” because of Jae Jarrell’s use of many different materials and textures. In the works I selected, Jarrell uses wool, suede, silk, velvet, wood, and cotton. I named the subpages “Storytelling” and “Representation” because of what each artwork was influenced by. For example, I put “Urban Wall Suit” on the “Storytelling” subpage because it is an ode to her neighborhoods and streets in the Chicago community. It served as a message board where every message had a different story and meaning. I put “Brothers Surrounding Sis in Ornamented Screen” on the “Representation” subpage because it suggests the importance of supportive relationships between brothers and sisters. This exhibition is my appreciation for Jae Jarrell and the lasting impact she has in this industry.