Jessi T Walsh teaches Production Design/Art Dept and Video Production courses in the Film Department at SFCC.
I am an Interdisciplinary Artist who works in visual, sensory/sonic, and earthen artforms. My formative practice encompasses drawing, printmaking, photography, installation, metals, and sculpture, which I studied at Florida State University, earning a BFA in Studio Arts in 1996. Filmmaking, sound art, writing, and performance art more formally emerged while in grad school at Columbia College Chicago in the 2000s. I have exhibited, performed, and screened my work across the US, and in Europe and México. I have been teaching most all realms of artmaking and arts-integrated processes to students K-12, College, and Adult since Y2K.
My crew and build shop experience in spectacle and puppet theatre led me to working on set for low-budget, no-budget, and award-winning indie films and preposterous B-movies as a one-person Art Dept and Production Designer, specializing in vegan gore, as well as being set photographer. I co-produced a DIY horror-comedy film festival which ran for 9 glorious years in Chicago. When you find amazing collaborators, the path of filmmaking builds itself.
I encourage my students to investigate filmmaking as an interdisciplinary process and an expansive container for all the collective experience they bring with them. Film is a place where everything and everyone belongs; no skill, curiosity, nor experiment is irrelevant. Ask me how I know.
