Baker Artist Portfolios

Beginning with my desire to delve into psychological understandings for my imagery, I found that ancient myths are an excellent prism through which I can reveal forbidden or repressed wishes and desires. While in art school I began painting stories about children, not as an adult’s idealized projection, but more honest narratives that reveal their sometimes frightening and whimsical worlds.

In 2004 Grace Hartigan (1922-2008), internationally renowned artist and then director of the Hoffberger Graduate School of Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) bestowed upon me the moniker the “Lewis Carroll of Baltimore.” I consider it a fitting description of my perspective because my paintings exposed imagery as frightening as the “…terrible things (that) happened to Alice (of “Alice in Wonderland”) – falls, chases, beheadings…. Jessica is talking about things that happen to children who are both menacing and being menaced.” (Baltimore Sun, Glenn McNatt 2004). It seems that Grace’s insight about my vision is true, even after all these years. I am not afraid to confront menacing presences, whether internal or external and also, all the while, exploit an aesthetic of beauty to lessen the shock.

While I came to Baltimore in 1996 to attend MICA and was enriched by Grace Hartigan’s mentorship, it was and continues to be the authentic energy of this city and the beauty of the surrounding Chesapeake Bay, which keeps me here. The easy accessibility of its complex, multi-racial and cultural roots through its art institutions, formal and informal and most of all, its people, was something I did not experience living in Washington DC. As a transplant to DC from New York City, I quickly learned that in DC, collectors prefer their artists’ dead.

Still there is a darker side to Baltimore that has more recently seen the light of day. This city’s and many of the Bay’s quaint port villages’ history of being sites for the use and trade of enslaved people. As a casual sailor I often passed a water entryway to the Eastern Shore, enigmatically called, “Bloody Point”. Oddly there are no rocks or other physical dangers to attribute the name’s origin. The mystery had to be resolved and that took me to the library of the Reginald Lewis museum and other research sources to help clarify the origins for “Bloody Point.”

Once I learned of Bloody Point’s many dreadful associations, it was my willingness to empathize with those who were uprooted, trapped, tricked and disposed to the Bay and other distant lands that helped me to create, “It is Rumored – Bloody Point, Chesapeake Bay, MD”

My life has woven through divergent trajectories - from a brief yet impactful career as a Pediatric nurse and college instructor to a research assistant with an environmental education group and activism with Women Strike for Peace. Amid these ventures, I have been an unwavering wife and mother to three remarkable children, together with my husband of forty-five years. These life-interwoven threads eventually led me to Baltimore in 1996, where I embarked on a Post-Baccalaureate program at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). A fervent aspiration materialized as I sought the mentorship of Grace Hartigan.

Upon graduating in 2001 with an MFA from MICA, I received a resident fellowship at the Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC) in Provincetown, MA where I met Ohio’s resident poet fellow, Maj Ragain. Ragain first told me about the myth of Leda and the Swan and I became fascinated with how that myth lives on today. It is revealed in its contemporary disguise as debates regarding “legitimate vs. illegitimate” rape, and the diminishment of women’s bodily autonomy and agency.

Maj and I continued to converse, share and encourage our respective arts. He was emotionally taken with my painting Leda and the Angry Swan and responsively penned, Leda’s Voice, Under Sky, Over Water in 2003. Thirteen years later I painted, What’s This-Prequel in response to his opening lines, “I lie in the wreckage of my longing which called him down to me…” In 2004 we had a collaborative show at Verde Gallery in Champaign IL and our nearly two-decade collaboration culminated in 2018 with "Home To Sargasso Sea - A long journey of loving collaboration: Paintings by Jessica Damen and Poems by Maj Ragain” at the Kent State University Downtown Gallery and the Wick Poetry Center.

Since 2001 I have exhibited regularly in commercial and academic galleries for solo, invitational and nationally juried shows. Most recently in November-December 2023 my solo exhibition, Resilience and Reimagining: The Feminine Narratives of Jessica Damen, curated by Liz Faust is an invitation to the viewer to embark on a journey of raw psychological revelations, of healing and redemption. Within each of us, stories germinate from a primal cry at birth, evolving through the molds of heritage and culture. Our shared goal is to cultivate resilience in confronting and synthesizing our identities. My journey began with this proclamation, “It’s a girl.”

My artworks can be found in noteworthy private in public collections:

Kearney Co., Alexandria, VA

George Floyd Social Conscience Art Movement Collection, JW Jones, Charlotte, NC

Ginsberg, Feldman & Bress, Attorneys, Washington, DC

GRE Insurance, Inc., New York, NY

IIT Research Institute, Chicago, IL and Fairfax, VA

Wick Library Corner, University of Ohio at Kent State, OH

The Polinger Company, Chevy Chase, MD

Rust Insurance Company, Washington, DC

Peter J. Sharp Foundation, New York, NY

Pat and Jeanne Turner, Baltimore, MD

United States Department of State, Art in Embassies Program, 1990-1994

Sidwell Friends School, Washington DC

Sunwest Communications Inc., Dallas, Texas

Zuckerman, Spaeder, Goldstein, Taylor & Kolker, Vienna, VA