Curatorial Statement
Featured work posted online: Monday, November 10, 2025 at 10 am MT
For our Holiday Featured Artist spot, Jesse will created a series of one of a kind, hand-made ornaments. Perfect for your tree, or to decorate your home all year round.
Jesse Baggett is currently pursuing an MFA in ceramic art at West Virginia University. Originally from the Texas-Oklahoma region, she earned her BFA from Midwestern State University in 2014. Between degrees, she worked as a mechanical drafter and a high school art teacher. She was a collaborating artist on the National Endowment for the Arts ceramic mural Better Together, 2023, located in Wichita Falls, TX. Her sculptural work brings to life a cast of southwestern animal characters and builds narratives that explore friendship, connection, and shared experience.
My work takes place in a fictional world inspired by the vast landscapes of the Southwest and Great Plains. It’s inhabited by animals native to the region—jackrabbits, raccoons, roadrunners, antelope, and bison—who serve as characters in stories about friendship, play, and grand adventures. These scenes reflect my own desire for community and the joy of shared experience. While I tend to be logical and structured in many aspects of life, this imagined world allows me to let go of those boundaries. It’s a place where I can be playful and imaginative, building a version of reality that feels freer, lighter, and more connected.
I create ceramic sculptures with a focus on playfulness, both in process and appearance. There’s a deep sense of joy in making the work, and I hope that feeling carries through to the viewer. I use a dark clay body that pairs well with the technique of sgraffito, allowing me to carve freely into the surface and sketch my animal characters into their imagined world.
My work is not about rendering reality but about creating a space where the boundaries of logic and fantasy blur. In doing so, I hope my viewers will feel the same sense of wonder and enchantment that drives me to make the work.
-Jesse Baggett