Words by: Ashlyn Chak
Photo credit: Julie & Jesse 

One graduated from textile and product design, another with a background in fine art — at first, this may seem like an unlikely pair; but by chance and a shared interest in the ornate art of ceramics, Julie Progin and Jesse McLin joined forces and embarked on adventures together, starting from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, all the way to the ceramic factories in Jingdezhen, China.

"We met through the ceramics department at Parsons," Julie reminisces. "I was making some pieces at the studio, and Jesse had his pieces there — they looked alike, so we chased each other to find out who the makers were behind the work, which led to wanting to exchanges pieces, and it just went from there."

Jesse was a young professor at Parsons and had a side job designing ceramics, whilst Julie worked as a graphic designer. The pair worked on ceramics together in their free time, and gradually, a weekend hobby grew into a profound desire to create more.

The reason they decided to pursue this passion full-time, Julie says, was because they wanted to explore deeper within their creativity. "Many of our friends doing ceramics in New York ended up being makers — they spend their time just making what they sell." But for Julie and Jesse, it simply wasn't enough. So in 2008, the duo left for Hong Kong to start their design studio Latitude 22N, where they were able to work on inspiring projects that eventually brought about the Julie & Jesse artistic practice. Though the seed had already been planted even before they set foot on Hong Kong soil.

"At the Metropolitan Museum [of Art] in New York, we saw this rather beautiful [porcelain] plate made in the Song Dynasty [AD920 – 1279]. It inspired us so much that we wanted to go back to trace China's amazing, long history of mastering the craft." With colorful enthusiasm, Jesse gives us more insight into the story. "We wanted to explore what was there and still existed. Is it all mechanized now? Are there people still doing handcraft? Without actually going there, there's no way to know."

This curious devotion took them to China's "porcelain capital", Jesse excitedly elaborates. "The first porcelain that Europe saw was from Jingdezhen. Even as early as the Song Dynasty, Jingdezhen was already mass-producing boatfuls of ceramics pieces. If you wandered through the Metropolitan Museum, you'd notice that the origin of pretty much all the porcelain items displayed there read 'Jingdezhen' on the label. It was this paradise that we had read about in history and books but never been in person."

Despite having next to zero connection in the Jiangxi Province, Jesse landed in Jingdezhen city alone on a plane from Hong Kong. Fortunately, to much of Jesse's delight, what he had heard of was true — nearly everybody was involved with ceramics there. He continues:

"Everyone has a micro business that specializes in one part of the ceramics making process. Your piece can bounce all over town to go to this master for firing, then another person for glazing. When you walk around, you'd see these old men wheeling handcarts, weaving through traffic with ceramic Buddhas, big pots, et cetera."

Julie & Jesse officially came to fruition in 2012, four years after the founding of Latitude 22N. The artistic venture's first piece — Fragment(s) — was issued by what failed in mass production, and the duo ended up with utterly unique pieces that defy the human concept of perfecting and controlling the craft of ceramics.

Most of everything from Julie & Jesse is one-of-a-kind — sometimes done in unique series, groups, or editions — but due to their sentimental value, Julie reveals, "We almost always try hard to make an edition of two for each, sometimes just for our internal archive."

When asked of the ideation behind their art, and more specifically, the Fragment(s) vases, Julie shares, "We were just walking behind this factory in Jingdezhen and finding these piles of broken moulds and trying to document that time and place in our life and discovery. In a sense, every project subsequently has been about these industrial errors — it's real-time archaeology."

When a gallery picked up Fragment(s), it became clear to the duo that they had to set them apart from Latitude 22N's relatively utilitarian products. "We needed to make a clean break and separate the art pieces we sign personally from the more branded products." Julie adds, "It's a very different dialogue."

"It's important to separate that for the public." Jesse nods in contemplation.

"Julie & Jesse is more of a conceptual vision from inside of us — a personal view on the world."

As Julie and Jesse progress and evolve as artists, their points of inspiration have changed drastically from one project to the next. The only constant, they both agreed, is that it is from "working within a situation or a context we're in, whether given to us or sought out by us."

Some artisans prefer to refine one specific technique that they work their entire lives towards; that is the opposite of the Julie & Jesse philosophy.

"Perhaps that is the traditional craft mindset. What we do is very different in that we craft a concept rather than a technique. Funnily enough, this helps us out a lot — because even if people were to copy us, they could only copy the technique, and not the concept." Jesse declares, "At the end of the day, we will continue to develop more concepts. It doesn't matter anymore whether we are copied or not."

As to what inspires their concepts, Julie divulges: "It all depends on the discoveries we make on the ongoing project... Then everything shifts, and we become obsessed with something completely new."

"With Julie coming from textile and design, and fine arts from my point of view, we have quite a rich combined background, which means our points of inspiration can be very diverse and hard to pinpoint." Jesse ponders, "But it is very crucial to look outside the box, continuously."

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