Jessica Park
*JESSICA PARK
Born 1958 - Massachusetts
Jessica Park is an accomplished self-taught artist with autism who is
known for her colorful pop-art architectural paintings. Jessica Hillary
Park was born on July 20, 1958 and lives in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She attended local public schools and received her first art instruction
from John Maziarz at Mt. Greylock Regional High School. Apart from a few lessons from friends she is self-taught. Jessica is a mail clerk at Williams
College where she has worked for 30 years.
Jessica's paintings start with a sketch, whenever possible done at the actual scene. Later she will often refer to a photograph for more detail.
Before starting to work, she carefully arranges all 64 tubes of her paints and then mixes a wide variety of subtle shades and hues. Jessica will never use a color straight from the tube. Each color is mixed to a particular shade and there will often be seven or eight shades of the same color which will be applied one by one according to a diagram that she holds in her mind from the beginning. Jessica's favorite color is mint green.
In regard to her ability to detect details in her subjects and to depict them with such accuracy, Jessica comments, "I rarely omit a drainpipe."
Jessica received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in 2003. She paints exclusively in acrylics. Jessica's life and vision have been documented in The Siege and Exiting Nirvana, two books by her mother, Clara Claiborne Park. Oliver Sacks called The Siege: A Family's Journey into the World of an Autistic Child "one of the first personal accounts of autism, and still the best -- beautiful and intelligent." Now, in Exiting Nirvana, Clara Claiborne Park continues the story of her daughter Jessy. In this moving, eloquent memoir, we see Jessy's progressive journey out of her isolated "Nirvana" into the world we all share.
It is an honest and captivating story of emergence, perservance, and love.
"A masterpiece. Clara Park's The Siege was also a masterpiece, but the two masterpieces are quite different. The first was about childhood. The second about maturity. Now we have prose instead of lyrics, serenity instead of passion. Clara has navigated through the storms and come safe to shore. Her daughter Jessy has grown slowly into self-awareness, and Clara's work is done."
--Freeman Dyson, The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, NJ, author of "Origins of Life."
*reprinted with permission
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