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Jami Porter Lara | Episode 481
Jami Porter Lara began working in ceramics after a 2011 trip to Mata Ortiz, Mexico, where she learned to forage and prepare clay, build coiled vessels, burnish, and pit-fire in reduction. Jami’s conceptual ceramics project, which contemplates the plastic bottle as a contemporary artifact, has been widely exhibited, including a 2017 solo show at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. Jami lives in Albuquerque, NM.
All other photos: Addison Doty, 2017-2018. Courtesy National Museum of Women in the Arts and Peters Projects.
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How important is confidence to the success of an artist?
I think it is really important. You need to believe enough in what you are doing to take the risks and to introduce your work to new people. I don’t know if that is really what I want to say, because if you don’t feel confident, then for me to just say, You need to be confident, isn’t really a solution. Do you know what I mean?
Well, let me ask a follow up question then. Is confidence a muscle that can be developed?
Yes, I think so. You know what happens when you get out of school and you just have no idea what to do and where to turn? What happened for me is I realized, Oh, here are the things I can do. I can start going to shows, I can go to gallery openings, I can start checking out the art spaces that are around me to see what I like and what I don’t like. To see where I think I would fit and I can start talking to all the people that I meet in those spaces. And I think that is the way to get practice talking about your work and developing confidence. Is not by just gong and cold-calling a curator, but rather by entering the art scene and understanding what is going on there and understanding what curators care about or a museum director or whatever. What are they interested in? Being able to talk to them and their interests. Those are some really practical steps actually for gaining the confidence you need to approach a gallery owner or curator.
Does confidence come with recognizing your skill level? Or does confidence come with the feedback of other people?
I think it probably has to do with feedback. I really do think it is about practice. You can be really skilled and be super nervous and not be able to talk to anyone about what you are doing. Those two things can entirely go together and so I really think it is an incremental process of getting out there into the art world and getting to be a know entity and becoming someone that people know.
Earlier you talked about the idea of relationships and getting to know people. How important are relationships for developing the career side of your work?
I think relationships are everything. I really don’t know how it is possible to develop a career without them. If I think about how I sell my work, it is because of relationships. If I think about the opportunities that I’ve gotten to show in museums, even the story that I told you about my friend who bought a piece and then told a curator who told another curator about me. I mean all of those are about relationships. At professional development workshops, after the panels I would go and introduced myself to every person who had presented to us, and afterward I sent an email to each one of them telling them something about what I had learned from what they said, and thanking them for being a panelist. So that was a way to become, instead of one of sixteen people, someone that they remembered from that room. And that gave me the opportunity next time I saw them to talk to them. So in some ways you can be really methodical about it.
It sounds like you had a strategic approach to whom you would meet. Is that accurate?
Yeah, I think so. When I think about where would I like to have a show, for example, or who would I be interested in working with. I would think about who they are and who I know who knows them. I guess I agree with you that I am strategic but I think I am also so thorough. So I try not to let any opportunity escape.
How does one be strategic and thorough and genuine?
I think that one of the great things about the art world is that it full of really great people. The people in the Albuquerque art scene, where I got started, were really aware of how symbiotic relationships are and how necessary we are to each other. I feel like my efforts have always been sincere. I think that the strategy part for me has been knowing that I wouldn’t have a career if I didn’t have the people that were part of that artwork.
You talked about how others have helped you. Are you helping others?
Yeah, I regularly now go back and talk on that panel that is part of the professional development workshops that I mentioned. And always extend the offer to the new artist in those programs to do a studio visit or have a meeting, that kind of thing. A few weeks ago I spoke in a classroom at the New Mexico School of the Arts, so I talked to a bunch of high school students. This Thursday I am going to do the same thing. I do those parts on a pretty regular basis. I am really interested in helping others get started in the way I got started. Also sharing technique and that kind of thing.
What does one do to become more tenacious? The talent we can learn, but tenacity is what I am curious about.
Oh gosh. How do you learn to be tenacious? This is one of the gifts of being older when you back to school is to try and not let your ego get in the way. So one of the things that I actually loved about learning to paint or learning sculpture or learning to work with clay when I was 41 years old, was that I never thought that I was going to be an artist. I didn’t walk into the classroom thinking I was going to be a great painter. I just wanted to see what it was all about. So I wasn’t afraid of failing because I didn’t have high expectations of what I could accomplish, I just wanted to be there and learn what I could learn.
Book
Notes from No Man’s Land by Eula Biss
Contact
Instagram: @jamiporterlara