Jane Kim of Ink Dwell

Photographs by Akiko Tsuji

Jane Kim at her Ink Dwell studio. Scarf, dress and shoes by AKIKO TSUJI.

Tucked away near the harbor of Half Moon Bay, I enter Jane Kim’s studio through an inconspicuous glass door, and I find myself in a room that appears like a space out of a natural history museum. Plants are visible throughout the space and an exposed high ceiling meets a partially painted white mural wall. I see color swatches next to an oversized painting of a mouse, and a large printout of a section of a beautiful Monarch butterfly, while large and small tools are placed neatly throughout. Then there is a taxidermied bear gently gazing toward the entrance. I spot spreads from the monthly science publication magazine that features Jane’s illustrations of local animals which include mammals, sea creatures, birds, plants, and insects.

Jane wears the Crocheted Circle scarf and the Billow dress.

Jane Kim is a visual artist, science illustrator, and the founder of Ink Dwell Studio working closely with her business partner and husband, Thayer Walker. Ink Dwell “creates art that explores the beauty and complexity of nature” and their most notable, and powerful works are murals such as the Wall of Birds at The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. A project in which every single bird is painted life-size, which took her team about 17 months from its conception to finish. In addition, the studio has produced works for the National Aquarium, the de Young Museum, Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, and more. 

Another notable work of Ink Dwell is the Migrating Mural campaign, a series of public installations highlighting wildlife along human-inhabited migration corridors. Seeing the reproduction of animals painted on the walls of the structures along the highways and overpasses is soothing and brings out curiosity. As they are scientifically accurate, they cast an aura that is serious and informative without any verbal messaging.

With Cliff the bear. Jane wears the Tulip M dress and the All-over shrug.

The amount of care Jane puts into painting - the precision of colors and details - brings life to these animals.  As I capture her in these outfits, the artist moves around the studio talking about her work with the same warm, insightful, and welcoming spirit. As she shows me an illustration of a spiny lobster I realize how little I know about the plethora of wildlife that exists so close to me here in the Bay Area!

Akiko: Where does the name Ink Dwell derive from?

Jane: When I was a student at CSUMB in Science Illustration, I started a blog called Ink-Dwell. Yes, there used to be a hyphen between the two words. It was a play on words—work that is “Inked Well” and depicts places I like to Dwell, nature. This name carried over.

Jane in the Reverse top and the custom Balcony denim pants.

A: You have acquired a master’s certificate in science illustration, were you always interested in the field of science, animals, and biology? Which came first, art or science?

J: My love of art and nature has defined me my whole life. The way I integrate biology and science developed over time.

A: Do the current or ongoing concerns of diminishing local species such as the Monarch butterflies drive you to be more active in the field of habitat conservation? If so, what are the things you are involved in?

J: Absolutely. Our work is our activation and contribution to habitat conservation. First and foremost, Ink Dwell’s work starts with driving awareness. In addition, many of our projects drive restoration efforts. In the case of the Monarch butterfly, the majority of our Migrating Murals resulted in our partners planting and restoring the surrounding landscape with native nectar-producing plants. Weber State University planted two acres of native milkweed as a result of our collaboration!

Jane’s illustrations of the local animals and plants.

A: How easy or difficult is it to invite or encourage the Monarch butterflies back to a new or old habitat?

J: I like to say, if you plant it, they will come. And if not monarchs, planting native nectar plants will absolutely attract pollinators of all kinds and that impact is hugely important.

A: What effects do you hope to achieve through your mural works? What are some obstacles? Frustrations?

J: I hope to create collective consciousness around our surrounding environment. There are truly those who do not care about nature or even actively dislike it. How to make nature appealing or interesting to this group is one of my biggest challenges and frustrations.

Jane in the Billow dress and the All-over slip ons.

A: Which was your favorite project?

J: The Wall of Birds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. It is equal parts art, education, and science illustration and is also free to the public.

A: What mediums do you use and which are your favorites?

J: For murals and paintings, I use latex and acrylic paints. But I love to explore different mediums and sometimes rely on the narrative of the piece to drive what medium I use.

Jane holds a sand in glass piece wearing the Billow dress and the Crocheted Circle scarf.

A: Can you tell me about the sand in the glass piece?

J: As an artist-in-residence at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, I explored the concepts of ecology, sociology, and technology in the Bay Area by highlighting the relationship between native and non-native species in Golden Gate Park. In Golden Gate Park, this relationship has played out for more than a century. Originally a sand dune ecosystem, the park is entirely man-made. Today, through careful management, the park provides a home to a blend of native and non-native species. San Francisco’s original habitat was coastal scrub and sand dunes.

Today we stand on an artifact of human creation. Ocean Beach represents a tiny glimpse of San Francisco’s native habitat. Ocean Beach sand was collected and preserved inside the hand-blown glass. The glass started as a perfect sphere, representing a human’s ability to shape and control. The introduction of sand to the molten hot glass spheres creates organic and uncontrollable changes to the object’s overall form, representing nature.

A: What are your concerns, hopes, and mission for the future?

J: Oof. This is a big question. I have so many concerns! BUT….I also see the collective consciousness around the importance of sustainability and Earth care growing. This certainly gives me hope. Ultimately, I would love to see our country be humble enough to say that we made some serious mistakes in our system development and that we will be brave enough to develop new ones.

A: Can you tell me about your current and/or future projects?

Holding a scale model of the water tank that will be painted in Sunnyvale. Jane in the Tulip M dress and the All-over Shrug.

J: One future project that I am most looking forward to is with the town of Mariposa. In spring 2019, the Mariposa County Planning Department and Mariposa County Arts Council were jointly awarded support from the National Endowment for the Arts’ Our Town program to develop a countywide Creative Placemaking Strategy. This effort was recommended in several community planning and direction-setting initiatives, especially the Mariposa County General Plan (2006), including the Economic Development, Arts and Culture, and Regional Tourism Elements, each of which contains goals, policies, and programs that weave together economic development objectives with efforts to enhance and celebrate Mariposa County’s cultural identity and sense of place.

In addition to the General Plan, the Mariposa County Economic Vitality Strategy (2017) also recommends the development of a coordinated and strategic approach to conceptualizing, investing in, and managing creative placemaking projects in the county. We will be painting two murals this fall and collaborated with Atlas Lab in Sacramento to design welcome gates on either end of town. Currently, we are preparing to begin painting a mural on a massive water tank in the city of Sunnyvale honoring the Bayland ecosystem.

Jane in the Tulip M dress, the All-over shrug and the All-over slip-ons.

A: Some fun questions. What’s your favorite activity?

J: Karaoke!

A: Favorite books?

J: “The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny” I can’t recommend this book enough. I am reading it for a second time. I believe that it should be part of every high school AND college curriculum.

A: Favorite food or drink?

J: Gin martinis with a lemon.

Jane in the Reverse top and the custom Balcony denim pants. Shoes: artist’s own.

Details clockwise from top: Great blue herons, Black-tailed deer, Eastern grey tree squirrels, and Grey fox. Photos: Ink Dwell

One Monarch mural in San Francisco. Photo: Ink Dwell

To find out more visit Ink Dwell.

The Artists of the Secret Meadow

Photographs by Akiko Tsuji

Renée, Alicia, and Cheryl in the denim happy coats and cropped jacket over the sculpted dresses.

Alicia Escott, Renée Rhodes, and Cheryl Meeker

On a brisk, late October morning, I met with the artists Alicia Escott, Renée Rhodes, and Cheryl Meeker at Buena Vista Park in San Francisco. I wanted to learn more about these three amazing women and their long-term mission to restore and preserve nature increasingly at risk by the world’s lack of addressing small and large environmental urgencies. This photo shoot is part a documentary and part a fashion editorial. It seemed such a fitting concept as I always make clothes with inspiring artists in mind.

Alicia in Simone dress.

Established in 1867, Buena Vista Park is the oldest park in San Francisco. It has been home to an abundance of trees, some indigenous to this region such as coast oak, toyon, coyote brush, and some not, like the eucalyptus, ehrharta grass, foxtail grass, ivy, and blackberry. The park stretches across 36 acres in central San Francisco with its peak at 575 feet above sea level giving a stunning view of the city including the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific Ocean, and Golden Gate Park. Even from the mid-section of the steep hill, one can get glimpses of quite pretty views of the city - layers of washed pastel-colored buildings reflecting the sunlight into the distance through the openings of the oak trees.

Renée wears Art Scarf D and Billow dress.

During the pandemic, Alicia and Renée took the baton from a friend who started this particular site restoration, and Cheryl came on board when they realized they were all thinking about convergent projects with oak ecologies. “We all live close to the park so this volunteer work is a meaningful way to give back and live in reciprocity to the land we share.” These artists’ ultimate goal for this site restoration is that what they plant and care for will eventually be fully able to thrive within the natural water cycle in San Francisco and become drought tolerant.

Cheryl wears cropped denim jacket and wool One Flower dress.

A short walk from the playground, the restoration site is slightly shielded away from the trail on a slope that is mostly covered with a bed of soft plants. Even in October and it has been dry, perhaps due to the frequent dense fog, the oak leaves and the surrounding plants were still quite green. Renée mentioned that much of the plants they planted amidst the grasses are perennial plants – horkelia, yarrow, coast buckwheat, and Douglas iris. When the late morning sun started to peek through the trees, the grasses shined golden. 

Alicia wears Art Scarf B and Simone dress.

The small yellow flags spread around the center of the site indicating where California fescue and purple needlegrass were planted. According to the group, they are drought-tolerant native California grasses that have deep root systems which can sequester carbon from our air and bury it deep in the land similar to a tree but are more resilient to a future with hotter fires. “This rainy season, we will be working with the Naturals department to select other plants to build the diversity in the meadow," says Alicia.

Alicia finds an oak sapling. Wears the Reversible Artist Denim Happy Coat.

One day a week, the artists would gather here and pull the weeds around, water them if they were just transplanted out of season, and keep their eyes out for any disturbance to the straw ground cover they have put down from coyotes or other animals including humans. Near it was a mid-sized grown spiraling bark of one oak tree that caught my eye. On its bark, there was a sapling, and this was "stump sprouting" meaning its growing forth was from a still-living root system from a tree that had been cut down. As I looked up, it was fascinating to see the even more spiraling barks and branches spreading out into the sky.

Cheryl, Renée and Alicia in sculpted dresses.

A jay came by around us surprisingly close, and I was told that it was expecting a feed from the acorns recently ripened. As we walked around, there was a small oak sapling from the ground. The group explained to me that it was acorn-sprouted, and "likely a local scrub jay buried an acorn there (to eat it later) from the tree behind it and forgot about it. This is often how oaks are propagated."

A view from Buena Vista Park

Each of the artists has made ecological-related work over the years and has increasingly incorporated habitat restoration and regeneration topics into their practices. "The line there is blurry for each of us. We have let this project unfold without defining it, and I think we are unsure if for us it is an art project or just habitat restoration. What we do know is that our weekly meetings are regenerative, that we feel we are building community together, and with our contacts at the park through moving our bodies and being in dialogue — but we are also building non-human community relationships and that it feels good. I am personally increasingly interested in a practice that makes art for both human and non-human audiences. I am interested in letting this work unfold over the years and not defining its purpose before it is ready." 

THE ARTISTS

Alicia Escott is an interdisciplinary artist based in the land currently called San Francisco. She/they practices in solidarity with thinkers across fields undoing the construct of “nature” as a thing separated from us and our world. @alicia_escott

Renée Rhodes creates social sculptures, videos, books, gardens, and walks that explore geological empathy, mimicry, and the creation of place-based memory through somatic practices. @reneearhodes

Cheryl Meeker is a visual artist working in a variety of media, touching on the fundamentals of sustenance in our economically and environmentally destabilized world. @cherymeeker

Scott Hewicker

Scott Hewicker Studio Visit & Interview

I’ve known Scott from having a brief but lovely conversations during the last couple of years, about music and the art scene around San Francisco (as he is super knowledgeable on these matters - and a true advocate of SF artists) and I’ve always found his views on current and past art and music refreshing. I also fancied his colorful set of paintings through the window of the Right Window art space in Valencia before the pandemic. There was the same quiet beauty about them that drew me to the posts on his Instagram feed too and I became increasingly curious about how and where he draws inspiration from in creating his art. I finally asked him if he’d model my clothes which I often imagine for artists to wear, and he graciously agreed.

Scott has been a multi-faceted artist based in San Francisco since the early 90s. He was one of the 12 original members of the exhibition expressing LGBTQ awareness at Kiki Gallery founded in 1993 by the artist and activist Rick Jacobsen in San Francisco. He also played in a couple of important independent bands, 'The Alps' and 'Aero-Mic’d’. Over the years, he's had a number of exhibitions including at Gallery 16, Jack Hanley Gallery, Deitch Projects NY, ICA Philadelphia, Galleri Christina Wilson in Copenhagen, and even curated one called ‘Hauntology’ at BAMPFA in Berkeley. He also co-edited and illustrated the book, ’Good Times, Bad Trips’ published by Gallery 16 editions in 2007 with Cliff Hengst. He had taught art classes at California College of the Arts. He now spends most of his time painting. 

On a partly sunny end of a summer day, Scott opened the double-fenced doors of his Mission district studio. Once he unlocked the door, I stepped into a bright space filled with gentle natural light. The walls and the ceiling were painted in white, and a plethora of art supplies and a palette of paints mixed with a buildup of colors sat neatly on the large table on one side of the room. Some of his newer paintings were hung at eye level with ample space around them as in a gallery. On the wall closest to the window was a large canvas with soft bright colors in faint abstract shapes sporadically spread throughout its surface. He wore a T-shirt of the band “Inflatable Boy Clam”, an all-female art punk band from San Francisco (I’d like to have one!), dark rinse jeans, and a pair of sand-colored Nikes. I put one of my blue happy coats on him and we started taking pictures while we conversed.

Akiko: How would you describe yourself?

Scott: I usually say I am an artist, writer, and musician, but really these are all practices under the umbrella of painting. Everything I do is informed by the poetic, psychological, and perceptual qualities of painting.

A: Tell me a little about your recent work  - the lighter color usage, show, etc.

S:  I recently moved into a new studio where the light is brighter and I’ve been experimenting with newer materials such as fabric dye, oil, and vinyl paint in different and sometimes unpredictable combinations. Some of the new work can be categorized somewhat as abstracted landscape environments, what I have been calling “Feral Gardens”, as that is how I see my clouded train of thinking these past years coming out of the pandemic: Many ideas growing into each other without a clearly defined path forward. Lots of layers and lots of building up of the materials. Other works seem to do the opposite where I am emptying everything out of them to what’s essential. These will be shown at Right Window (992 Valencia) in October in an exhibit titled, “Recalled To Life”.

A: The bright colors  - where do you draw inspiration from?

S: I have long been interested in the contrary qualities of color. My often highly-saturated palette comes mostly out of childhood experiences growing up in the Southern California of the seventies and eighties (the artifice of beach and mall culture during the Reagan era for example) and a youthful queer defiance against gender stereotypes. I like using bright or unusual color combinations to reflect complex or uneasy feelings.

A: Do you consume a lot of visual artworks and/or music from others? Favorite artists / authors?

S: My first art teacher engrained in me the importance of Art History as a tool of creative enrichment so I take vast inspiration from art periods and movements throughout history. But I’m drawn most to visionary artists such as Giotto, Gustave Moreau, James Ensor, Edvard Munch, Charles Burchfield, Hilma af Klint, Josef Albers, Alma Thomas, Marsden Hartley, Agnes Pelton, and Agnes Martin, to name just a few. Music and writing inspirations are equally as vast, but here are a jumble of names: Diane di Prima, Norma Cole, Dodie Bellamy, Valerie Willmer, Wilkie Collins, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Broadcast, Don Cherry, Pauline Oliveros, Clarice Lispector, Gabor Szabo, John Fahey,  Velvet Underground & Nico.

Scott in the Blue Happy Coat

A: What thoughts do you have about the teaching experience? What kind of class did you teach?

S: Teaching is equally rewarding and harrowing. It requires so much stamina and outright bravery to put yourself through the hierarchy of shit that is constantly thrown at you. Our educational institutions and our society do not uphold the value of teachers enough. I was a college level art teacher for 13 years, first teaching painting and drawing then teaching a 2D design class in color theory that helped shape and define most of my ideas about color and space. I loved teaching for giving me a platform to articulate and communicate these ideas to others, and working with the students individually to help find their own paths through it, but the precarity of the profession institutionally and financially as well as toxic leadership forced me to leave institutional teaching behind. I try when I can to teach my own courses or offer private lessons.

A: Music questions. The Alps band - what inspired you to form the band? How long did it last and where are they available?

S:  The Alps happened to morph into being one summer  in SF when my two friends, Alexis and Jefre came over to my place to jam one weekend and something interesting and kinetic transpired. We were all in other bands at a moment when we were all itching for something different. It transformed quickly, a few loose ramshackle shows opening for NNBB, Sir Richard Bishop and Jack Rose. A couple of record deals, two long recording sessions with Phil Manly, 3 albums, a handful of cd-rs and a final headlining performance at Cafe Du Nord for the On Land music festival in 2010. It was over in less than 3 years, when Jefre and Alexis moved to New York to pursue solo careers. You can hear the music on Spotify, our music was definitely painterly.

Scott in the Painted Red Shirt

A: Can you tell me a little about the Jozef van Wissem & Aero Mic’d/sound at the Schindler House 14 years ago? 

S: Aero-Mic’d was the electronic music project of my friend Wayne Smith, (we were in an earlier art band together called Plain) and whenever he was asked to perform live, he asked me and my husband Cliff to accompany him. Wayne often got invited to do shows at interesting spaces because of the “furniture music” nature of his work. We also performed at Grace Cathedral. The Schindler house is incredible. That particular music series programmed two different kinds of musical artists and after each set they asked the different artists to do a collaborative improvisation, so that is how we performed with Josef van Wissem. I remember it being a beautiful night in an amazing location, but I don’t think our collab was particularly stellar. Those things are often risky, though it’s probably not as bad as I remember it.

A: What instruments do you or did you play?

S: Piano, Organ, Guitar and Flute.

A: Light-hearted questions. What are other skills you have? 

S: I lay name to no useful skill, but I’m an enthusiastic amateur and dabbler. 

A: Your favorite movies, drinks, food.

S: Stalker, The Haunting, The Innocents. Paranoid cinema in general. A Moscow Mule is my favorite cocktail, though I‘ve been calling them a Kyiv Mule lately. Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies are my favorite food.

A:  Fill in the blank. I can’t  stand...…

S: No space is big enough to tell you all the things...

A: Philosophical questions. What are you not?

S: High Society.

A: You create art because ...

S: I can say so many things but the most honest one is I like spending time alone imagining the world differently.

Scott wearing “The Earth Fragile” necklace

Blue Happy Coat, painted red shirt, and “The Earth Fragile” Necklace: Akiko Tsuji at AKIKOTSUJI.COM.  ”It’s not the end of the world” Pin: David Kramer for Days at DAYSZINE.COM. “Inflatable Boy Clams” T-shirt, jeans, and shoes: artist’s own.