JEAN MARCEL ST JACQUES

The last decade and a half of my life and work has been defined by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The force of nature that blew the roof off of my house and forced me into a silent mediatation and communication with my ancestors. Particularly my great-grandmother who made patchwork quilts and my great-grand father, a hoodoo man who among other things was a junk collector that recycled and upcycled things way back in the first decades of the 1900s. He was born in 1892. She was born in 1900. I knew and spent time with them both as a child. I even have photos of me siting with them. I remember how their voices sound. I remember how they smelled. I remember what they held important. My wooden quilts and other works I make from wood and objects salvaged from my Katrina-damaged home are my way of being with the spirits of these ancestors. My workshop is also an ancestor shrine. Her quilts she left me when she passed and a few of his old wooden handled hammers, axes, chisles, screwdrivers and block planes are always within sight as I fashion new work.