Bayou Artist | Finding Purpose In Clay

Article by April C. Doughty
Photographer by Kelly Moore Clark
Jansyn’s preferred pronouns they/them

Jansyn Jenkins, a recent ULM graduate with dual degrees in psychology and ceramics, is navigating the challenges of post-college life with resilience and passion, determined to build an intentional, creative career rooted in both personal expression and connection.

A spring graduate of the University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM), local artist Jansyn Jenkins is learning how to navigate life beyond the structure of school and without access to the art-making resources that are afforded to university students. As a ceramicist, this transition has proven challenging, but Jenkins remains optimistic and passionate about making art. It’s easy to let challenging circumstances or disappointing news bring a person down, but Jenkins said something positive always seems to follow on the heels of anything that might bring them down, reassuring them that making art is part of who they are.

Their work, often sculpted and carved in clay, moves between the personal and the historical, the tangible and the symbolic. With two undergraduate degrees from ULM—a Bachelor of Arts in psychology and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in ceramics—Jenkins is a promising and thoughtful young artist whose strong start bodes well for their future. They are determined to build a career that reflects not just skill and creativity, but intentionality and connection.

“I’ve always done the art thing as far as I can remember,” they said. But their path to dual degrees wasn’t perfectly straight, and it came with side-road lessons in self-discovery and confidence building. Jenkins actually originally intended to major in psychology with only a minor in art. “The more I took classes,” they said, “I realized that I would’ve graduated from ULM in three years, and I wasn’t ready to give up the resources that ULM afforded me. So I was like, ‘I think I’ll find a way to work out this dual degree.’” And they did.. 

Their entry into ceramics also wasn’t part of a carefully crafted plan. It came, as they describe it, from a kind of stubborn determination. Deciding to pursue art wholeheartedly was, according to Jenkins, “a thing of spite.” They said, “One of my projects exploded in the kiln, and I got my first ever 50 in college for my grade, and I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m not going out on that note.’ And now here I am.”

That moment led them to consider whether ceramics could become something more than an academic requirement, something with greater purpose and meaning. “I think I was between deciding that I wanted ceramics to be my second major or maybe, at the time, the concentration of my minor,” they said. “I was in this kind of uncertainty about art making.” During this time, I was selected for ULM’s first Cultural Arts Fellowship. This recognition and opportunity was a complete surprise to Jenkins, but it was also a much-needed confidence boost. “I was like, you know, I think this is something I’m comfortable doing the rest of my life,” they said. “Or until the carpal tunnel sets in,” they added with a laugh.

Mentors And Growth
Jenkins credited a long list of people for helping them become the artist they are today, including professors, family, and peers. “There’s my parents, of course, who are very supportive, my long-term partner who is also a fellow artist, and then, of course, everyone at ULM who always encouraged me,” they said.

“Megan Smith, my ceramics instructor, played the largest role in fostering that mindset of, ‘Yeah, I can do ceramics,’” they added. “And then, of course, Cliff Tresner. I have a lot of respect for him. And then also my counselor because mental health is a really big thing in all walks of life, but especially for something that is as self-directed as art has to be.” 

Jenkins said the list of people who’ve supported them along the way is expansive. “It really is a village,” they said. “And I guess somewhere in there, I’d have to include myself for telling myself I could do these things, but the credit really goes to everyone else who can externalize or verbalize praise in such a way that it doesn’t hit the same as when you tell yourself you can do it.”

There’s also Dr. Nicholas Bratcher, the director of visual and performing arts at ULM, as well as Drék Davis and Vitus Shell, who were wonderful mentors, and all of the teachers from elementary through high school, who still comment on Jenkins’s social media posts, who come to exhibitions, and who never doubted Jenkins for a second.

All of this support has helped Jenkins see beyond narrow definitions. At one point, Jenkins said, “I was like, I can’t paint. All I can do is ceramics, and independent of one another, both my counselor and Cliff were like, I don’t understand why you’re resigning yourself to the label of a ceramicist when you should just be calling yourself an artist.”

A Medium Without Expectation
Although Jenkins’s artistic interests have no boundaries, and they no longer resign themselves to a single medium, for Jenkins, ceramics offered something that drawing and painting didn’t: freedom from internal expectations. “There was a period in school where I really enjoyed oil painting and wished it was my major,” they said. “But I wouldn’t have had the time to account for that kind of switch.” So in a way, the decision to focus on ceramics was partly one of convenience, at least for a time.

But that convenience led to a deeper connection to clay and an understanding of why ceramics were actually a better fit for them when it came to choosing a concentration. When Jenkins started exploring ceramics, they had never before experienced a medium that was so hands-on, tactile, and immediate. “I think I really appreciated the difference that that afforded to me,” they said. “My relationship with ceramics is entirely different from my relationship with drawing or painting or graphic design where I have these expectations of what I want these things to look like.”

With ceramics, there was no rigid standard in their mind, no internal voice demanding perfection or adherence to precedent. Without the weight of those expectations, Jenkins was free to explore. “Whenever you have a surface level education of fine arts, you know all of the painters, and you may know some writers, but when it came to ceramics, I really had no frame of reference, so I didn’t have expectations beyond, ‘Don’t have your stuff explode.’”

That openness allowed Jenkins to work more intuitively, without judgment, and with fewer standards. “I don’t have this unnecessarily high bar to live up to,” they said. “My relationship with ceramics allows me to approach it with a greater sense of freedom.” Even now, after finishing their undergraduate education, Jenkins said the number of historical references that come to mind when thinking about ceramics is far fewer than with other art genres, which has made it easier to free themselves from the tendency to imitate.

Water, History, and Cultural Memory
Over time, Jenkins’s work has become more deliberate and more reflective of their own unique voice. They’ve begun to create work that draws on symbolic meaning, often grounded in personal experiences, research, and a historical context. Jenkins said if someone were to look at their pieces from their beginning and intermediate classes without considering the lack of craftsmanship at that stage, they would see a lot of pieces that look like a spin on something seen on social media. “Now I rely a lot more on my intuition and making and sketching forms that appeal to me through a historical lens,” Jenkins said.

That lens includes both personal history and broader cultural narratives. One recurring symbol in Jenkins’s work is water, which they described as a connective thread, especially within Black history.

“Clay ceramics uses so much water, and in some of my artwork, I like to explore the connections that we make through water, especially as a Black person,” they said. “My history’s entrenched in water—being a part of the transatlantic slave trade, enslaved people being carried up and down rivers, escape routes being based in water and things like that.”

This metaphor of something necessary and life-sustaining that also holds centuries of trauma adds depth to Jenkins’s relationship with their materials. They describe a sense of historical presence in the process of working with clay, especially when combining that process with research and symbolism. The clay becomes a way to hold and reshape memory.

“So it’s like in a sense, it all feels like history is kind of being distilled into this moment,” they said.

Symbols, Numbers, and Narrative
The desire to encode meaning also carries through much of Jenkins’s work. They referenced one piece from their fellowship exhibition that featured 111 ceramic apples and 13 apple cores. “I deliberately chose 111 as the number of apples I made because that can symbolize new beginnings, which is what that exhibition was for me,” they said. “And then I made 13 cores because 13 is viewed as this unlucky number that allegedly refers to the number of witches in a coven, and I think the depiction of women as witches is such a fascinating topic in itself.” Jenkins is interested especially in the symbolism and folklore surrounding witches, as well as their significance and presence in popular culture.

Even Jenkins’s more playful works carry hidden messages. “A piece that I made for myself looks like a vase with a bunch of bees on it,” they said. “But it’s an inside joke between me and my partner who has a ‘Save the Bees’ t-shirt and hates insects. The number of bees on the vase corresponds to their initials in that numeric position in the alphabet, so J equals 10, A equals one, and F equals six.”

For Jenkins, meaning matters, even when it isn’t immediately visible. Superficially, Jenkins said their work consists “of things that I think are cool.” But once a person decides to learn more or ask questions, “it doesn’t just look cool,” they said. “There’s a reason it was made.” There are layers of meaning in Jenkins’s work, leading them to describe it as “nuanced.”

On Depth and Meaning
Jenkins pushes back against the idea that seeking the deeper meaning in art is unnecessary or pretentious. “I think we’re witnessing a very interesting rise of anti-intellectualism,” they said. “There are those kind of thought-terminating clichés about people being like, “Oh well, it’s not that deep, but I’ve never believed that.” 

They recognize that not everyone will dig into a work’s meaning—but they still believe in the presence of that meaning and that searching for it is worthwhile. “Obviously art is in the eye of the beholder,” they said. They believe it’s the viewer’s right to engage with a work or not, but speaking of their own work, they said, “As the artist, I’m stating definitively right now that it is that deep. It just depends on if you’re willing to make the effort to understand why it is or how it is that deep.”

Jenkins said one way to get people to engage more deeply is to make them feel like it’s their own idea. “People have to feel like they’re doing something of their own volition. That’s how you start that conversation,” they said.

For Jenkins, part of the appeal of ceramics and a characteristic that enhances their depth of meaning is the fact that ceramics exist as a form of historical record. Jenkins spoke about the permanence of fired clay and the subtle marks sometimes left behind by the maker. “Once clay gets fired, it’s on earth forever, basically eternity,” they said. “Even if I break it up into a bunch of pieces, it’s going to remain that fired clay for ages.”

Small imperfections and signature subtleties become part of the story as well. “Some ceramicists have special touches that they add,” Jenkins said. “Like sometimes they leave their thumb on a piece when they dip it to glaze, so you can trace your finger over that and be like my thumb is holding where the artist held this piece and so in that moment we’re connected by this thumbprint, by this patch of missing glaze.”

That connection, for Jenkins, is the heart of the form. “To hold a piece of artwork and it be handmade, it’s like I’m holding the evidence of someone’s love of the craft and their love of the art form,” Jenkins said.

Art and Critical Thought
Jenkins also sees art as a vehicle for critical thinking. “Making art encourages critical thinking in a way that is a lot more accessible for me,” they said. They compared the process to writing a paper and using research, synthesis, and analysis but without the academic pressure to phrase everything perfectly.

“Although I would say I’m still doing a lot of the research that goes into making an essay and academic paper, it’s the end product that’s different,” they said, “because it doesn’t necessarily have to be in a form that’s immediately understandable like an essay is.”

Instead, Jenkins appreciates the space and freedom visual art offers. “I don’t have those same restrictions when I’m making visual art,” they said. “So the way art allows me to employ critical thinking skills is one of the primary ways it enriches my life.”

Collaboration and the Artist Interchange
Jenkins continues their own creative growth through the North Louisiana Artist Interchange, which is hosted by the Ross Lynn Charitable Foundation based in Ruston. This project is ongoing with an exhibition projected for this August. While participating in this project, Jenkins has worked one-on-one with other artists in their cohort and will work with a single artist in the cohort to create a final project, which Jenkins is excited about. “There’s this misconception that art is something that is made alone, so it’s an adjustment, but I also like doing things that are a little bit uncomfortable because it gets you out of your comfort zone,” they said, “and then you’ve done it, so you can do it again.”

Where Belief Takes Shape
In addition to navigating their first steps as a newly graduated artist, Jenkins will soon begin a new job that uses their psychology degree and is passionate about mentoring young people. “Right now, for a week more, I’m a barista, but after that, I will be working in mental health,” they said. “I think a lot of my artwork has to do with human connectivity and relationships—both intra and interpersonal.” For Jenkins, the goal of art is to connect us to one another, and sometimes that means connecting to children.

Recently, Jenkins has found ways to use their skills and experience to introduce children to art and foster seeds of creativity in them. Their work with children builds on the lessons they received from their own mentors. “The important thing for me when I work with kids is imparting what my counselor and Cliff said to me,” they said. “Don’t cling to the identity of one thing so hard that you deprive yourself of experiencing other things.”

They emphasized the importance of giving kids early access to creative expression. “Make art accessible to kids so that way, if art is something that they want to pursue, they know that it’s as easy as picking up a pencil or a paintbrush or a ball of dirt,” they said.

“When you’ve done it before, you can do it again,” they added. “The scariest thing is starting, but if you started when you were five, did you ever really stop doing it?” For Jenkins, it all comes back to belief, to inspiring that belief in others, and nurturing it inside oneself. “Isn’t everything like riding a bike,” they said. “Once you learn the skill, you’ve got it?” And just like clay, once shaped and fired, that belief in oneself becomes something permanent.