Jill Waterhouse

 

Statement of Mentoring Philosophy

Being a mentor means holding the space for a protégée to explore, examine, grow, question, and develop her work – and her relationship to it. Mentoring is a job of listening, coaching, probing, cheerleading, teaching, offering a critical eye – and sometimes pushing – in order to help a protégée reach her potential and her goals as an artist.

As a mentor, I bring all of my skills to the table – my work as an artist, life coach, Critical Response facilitator, teacher, performer, writer, and mentor of 14 odd years or so. And, I bring my whole life to the work we do, as I would expect of my protégée as well. Sometimes our lives can get in the way of our work, but they also inform our work. We need to learn to live those lives and to use them well – in service to our work and to each other.

It is my belief that as a mentor, I must be committed to my protégée and her work, but also to the program and the other mentors and protégées in the program. To be truly valuable as a mentor means that I must also have a relationship to and with that larger group – and to encourage and foster my protégée in developing those same relationships.

Because, in the end, my work with my protégée is also about mentoring and honoring the commitment to something larger than oneself – and to offering the opportunities and growth that become available with that commitment to my protégée. And further, to help my protégée grow the network that will sustain her in the years to come in her work as an artist. This can be a lonely road that we take, and some good friends with good ears (and eyes) can go a long way in helping us get where we want and need to go.

And, last but certainly not least, I believe that mentoring should be fun. That the work we do together should be filled with as much joy and laughter as it is with challenge and work; and, that what I do with my protégée comes from the love of doing it – and to some degree from the desire to “pay it forward” in honor of those who mentored me when I needed it.

Jill Waterhouse
June 3, 2010

Artist Statement

Over the last three decades, my work as an artist has been an exploration of the ideas and things that I am concerned about and about which I have many questions. The process of visioning and creating the work is my way of exploring those questions more deeply.

The form of my work has been primarily that of sculpture – abstract handmade paper pieces, cast masks, bookmaking, found object assemblage and installation – and often on a large scale. But over the last half decade of my mother’s illness and subsequent death, I needed to create a more portable form of my work. So, I began to explore one of my first artistic loves – photography – in combination with my inclination towards layering, collage and painted surfaces.

In my current work, the photographic images (mostly manipulated Polaroid self-portraits) are a means to an end. They are allowing me to examine something that has puzzled and both delighted and dismayed me over a lifetime: the nature – and consequences – of beauty. This idea is not new to my work, but my approach is. And it is more intimate, personal, and perhaps risky.

When I started this work, I was not certain what it was about or why I wanted or needed to do it. I wasn’t even sure that I should. Though doubts still pester me (is this not the nature of being an artist?) I am gaining in wisdom as I move through the process.

What is wonderful, is that it finally does not matter to me if I know – right now. I trust the process enough that it will be revealed to me, if I am patient. Like waiting for a shy animal to step forward from the forest. It takes time – and persistence.

In the meantime, I continue to work. I delight in the process, and try not to let my focus be on the product. Just yet. I am finding that there are layers I have not yet explored – the ugliness (and perhaps the decadence or danger) within beauty – that excite me and continue to drive my exploration of these pieces. And, I am beginning to find the raw edge in this work that draws me in and pushes me forward.

I am also continuing my work as a sculptor and have embarked on a long dreamed of project on “the language of things, the burden of stuff” – how what we “own” comes to own us. This project explores “the stuff” of an artist – both physical and metaphorical – and the culmination of the project is planned as a series of exhibitions in which all the work will be given away.