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Interview with Jean Mandeberg

Recent Teaching History
Working Small; Fall-Winter 2000-2001; Fall - Winter 1999-2000
Weird and Wondrous; Fall - Winter 1998-99

Jean Mandeberg, artist, was asked what should be said to a student asking, “What’s price do I have to pay to be around this interesting woman?”
Jean’s first response was “Well, I think by reputation I ask students to work pretty hard, and pay attention, and devote a lot of time—more time than they probably think they’re going to spend at the beginning--to this work. I ask them to be willing to change, to take risks, and to figure out what’s important to them, not what’s important to me.” She paused, knowing how difficult it is for students to believe that she really means important to them not to her. She went on. “I help them figure out what ideas are most important to them, what they value, what images provoke ideas for them, and then help them develop those. The kind of work I ask of students, I like to think, is always a little more than what they think they can do. [The work] is work that makes them think about a combination of technical skills and forms, purely visual language and ideas. . . . I think that it is surprising to a lot of students that I really, genuinely am interesting in what’s important to them.”

Then with a smile she said, “I was told just before I left [on sabbatical] that the student’s nickname for me was Jean Demandingberg.”

Jean Mandeberg knew she was an artist for some time before she discovered her medium. She followed the path of college art major until she reached an impasse. In 197- she found herself in Idaho making little objects out of clay that were part sculpture part kitchen pottery. The ambiguous provenance was not what created the impasse.

“I initially went to graduate school in ceramics, because I had done so much work in ceramics—I think of this often when I advise my own students now—it was an accessible exciting material I loved it that was it! In my first year in graduate school I was making these choral-built forms that were very carefully fitted and hinged. I would work on them for hours, fire them and discovered that after they were fired that they had warped, or shrunk, as clay tends to do and so none of the hinges fit any more and none of these little lids fit any more and none of the hinge pins would fit through the knuckles and I was frustrated over this one day when one of my fellow graduate students walked by and said ‘You know, it would be a lot easier to make that form in metal.’ It was one of those ahha experiences! There were a lot of things about the material and the way of working the material that fit with my ideas and personality and my way of working and it made me understand how important it is to experiment with a range of not just materials but forms of expression if you want to be a creative artist to understand the difference between working with words and metal and stone and sound and moving images and all of those kinds of things. Once I switched to metal smithing and jewelry-making that was it. It was exactly the right fit.” (In more ways than one.)

It also helps to know who you are and where from. Jean is from Detroit. This interviewer suggested that if she didn’t make it as an artist she could make automobiles; she came from the right part of the country.

“One of the strong influences [upon her] as a child was going to the auto show in Detroit every year. There were two shows, actually, there was The Auto Show, the one where the new model cars would be shown and everyone would go to The Auto Show. That was a big, big, deal. But then, after the Auto Show would be the Autorama which was in the same space as I recall, but instead of the new auto models being shown it was all the automobiles that people had been chroming, and fine tuning, in thir garages at home for months and months and months and so then we go to the Autorama, and there would be [deep breath] you know, there would be these incredible Corvettes, with mirrors on the floor underneath them, so you could see the chrome on the bottom, and combed sand around them, and Iguanas tied to the bumpers and half naked women serving hors d’oeuvres! It sounds surreal but that’s what it was like. It was pretty exciting.

“I remember the year they let motorcycles into the Autorama. This was a big controversy, should it just be just for cars or could motorcycles be included, finally they were included, and then, and then the next big event was when somebody realized that some of these vehicles should be shown at the Museum of Art in Detroit. And so there was this movement of these objects from Coble Hall to the Detroit Museum of Art; and then it was fascinating to me to realize how objects suddenly shift within the culture but also could be seen as art pieces. Clearly I was influenced by all those shiny chrome bumpers that I was surrounded by, what you can do with metal. Also I really do remember my neighbor working on it and there was a passion about it--the same sort of passion that I see in the studio that artists bring to their work--that thing that you love that is the ultimate. I remember thinking to myself that I can’t remember anything that I was willing to stay up overnight for before, not even a boy! And so this was Something! ‘Take this seriously Jean.’ There was also this thing about functional objects which could be really beautiful, and be appreciated in non-functional ways. That’s a pretty fundamental idea for a craftsperson.”

Fortunately for Evergreen, Jean didn’t have to go on the production lines in Detroit. She set up shop here at Evergreen and for a number of years had a pattern of “unplugging the phone and work months and months” intensely making art, interspersed with moments of figuring out what to do with what she’d made. Very recently, starting Spring Quarter of 1997, Jean has been bringing balance to her responsibilities as a member of the larger community of artists, by paying attention to the commercial aspects of the art world and making an effort to exhibit and sell her work. She has been successful in that effort. She has several exhibits going on and has just sold a lot of her work. She is including this new knowledge and experience in her teaching, of course, but she has also been working for the community as head of the Olympia Arts Council.

Interviewer: Pete Sinclair

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Last Updated: March 15, 2007