Ep. 238 : Cricket Jergens

My work is fueled by the complex dissonance of a modern human experience—dominant over and separate from the natural world. A dance between grief and hope, my art evokes visual representations of ambiguous loss of natural entities and celebrations of persistent patterns, teachers, medicine and kin. Trees are my primary source of inspiration. My mediums range across fiber arts disciplines and include felting, weaving, paper and book making, and basketry. Process is essential to comprehension of my felted work as it represents a personal expression of ritual, and the fusing of individuals into collective; an echoing of earthly interconnectedness, mycelial networks and coalescence. Bent knees allow flat palms to meet earth, expressing acts of care, reverence and patience–a physical prayer of grief, gratitude, and remembrance. This ritual of wet felting and its physically demanding process help me to expel grief, loss, frustration and anger. In turn, because of the labor intensive process, I must give myself fully to the piece knowing I will sacrifice my body’s abilities in the days following. I view this dynamic as an exploration of “how much do we live in reciprocity with our earth?”. While traveling, basketry has been my most consistent medium choice as it allows me the flexibility of a gradual less demanding process.  My work aims to evoke an environmentally conscientious community through a declaration that we are a global community, equally responsible for the protection of Earth.  Materials sourced from nature engage environmental agents as collaborators, not merely subject matter. I have been traveling/volunteering fulltime since the summer of 2024. After the completion of my degree, I craved education from life beyond the realm of academia and the insular scope of American understanding. I have since been to 11 countries. This experience has helped me flourish in problem solving, communication, forgiveness, my understanding of international relations, the connectedness of our human experiences despite nationality or social position, that positive land relationships exist everywhere, and the importance of my relationship with myself, my artwork and my spirituality. Links: Contentsofcricket.com @contentsofcricket ig