Beacon artist moving toward serenity
For neo-hippie Jayln Thedford, art has been an effective coping mechanism since childhood. Now, she’s drifting toward a life of serenity — the exact sensation she hopes people take from her work.
Thedford, 24, is settling into a groove, experimenting with subject matter and approach while moving from small watercolors to large oil and acrylic pieces with elements of collage. Four of her paintings are on display at Two-Way Brewery in Beacon.
Three focus on couples embracing, sometimes with eyes closed. “I want to show loving people who are Black, connecting and going back to our natural essence,” she says. “It’s as if they’re relaxing in perfect harmony and resting on each other.”
A prominent Black Power fist adorns her Martin Luther King Jr. portrait, and a more subtle one is placed at the end of an Afro pick handle. But the most important recurring themes in her work include celestial images, flowers pressed to the canvas and flora in the background to express her desire to get back to the garden.
Thedford grew up in LaGrangeville and often visited family in Beacon, where she moved in 2018. After earning a bachelor’s degree in fine art at Purchase College, she’s teaching the fundamentals to elementary school students in Manhattan.
She’d like to own a gallery, but for now, there’s time enough to create. Thedford’s latest shift is depicted by her drawing, “Gemini” (below), which shows the left side of a young woman’s face in full color with the other half rendered on a black background in white painting marker, like a film negative.
As seen in the long, swirling lines of “Gemini” and others at Two-Way, Thedford enjoys getting lost in the process. “When I’m filling in the squiggly lines or doing a stringy hairstyle in one long stroke, it’s like going freestyle, and I’m so happy,” she says.
She demonstrates her technical command in a Beacon street scene featuring the big clock on the east end of Main Street looking northwest by depicting delicate fine lines to delineate the fence around its base and capturing the texture of its body and brick base with minimal brush strokes.
One recurring element in her work that she says people often misinterpret is the wavy goo that oozes from arms and torsos. “It’s not blood — it proves our equality as biological beings,” she says. “For anyone who is cut open, the same thing comes out. It’s our essence, which connects humanity.”
The stark contrast between a watercolor completed during the pandemic and “Connect the Pieces” (at Two-Way) offers another indication that Thedford is in a good place. Many of her pandemic works featured people without faces, including a brooding self-portrait (below).
“I knew a lot of people who died,” she says. “I was in my basement sophomore year, learning to paint online. I felt like I’d been robbed, it was such a dark time.”
Where the initial watercolor showed shards of her face arranged around the frame — an eye here, half a mouth there — the centerpiece remained black. But in the new, similar and sunnier work, pressed flowers and a corner of the universe occupies the space where the face would be. Dreadlocks that look messy up close cohere from afar.
“I’m just trying to spread peace, joy and love,” she says. “I want people who see my work and get a sense of calmness and tranquility — and know that I had fun making it.”
