Cincinnati native Jessica Held is an artist, a teaching artist, a small business owner, a festival coordinator, and an art editor living in Athens, Ohio. She earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts in painting and photography at Ohio University. Jessica has exhibited nationally and internationally with her first exhibit in Prague, Czech Republic while studying abroad. She continues to create, exhibit, and publish her paintings, photographs, and collaborations. In 2023, Jessica had a public art piece installed in Athens, Ohio. In 2024, she exhibited in a global group show in Rochester, New York.

Jessica has extensive experience as a visiting, resident, and teaching artist. She has taught visual arts, art appreciation, interdisciplinary, and STEAM lessons at schools, art centers, and community events in Ohio, Texas, Indiana, and Michigan. Currently, she teaches summer art camp and teen art club at the Dairy Barn Art Center in Athens, Ohio and K-12 students after school art enrichment classes through Ohio University’s ‘Kids on Campus’ program throughout Southeast Ohio. In 2023, Jessica started a teen art club at the Dairy Barns Arts Center. In 2024, she was Art Possible Ohio’s ‘Adaptation, Integration and the Arts’ program’s resident artist at Bundy Elementary in Wellston, Ohio and trained for the Ohio Arts Council’s ‘Creative Aging Ohio: Building Bridges to Sustained Communities’ initiative program.

As the artist and owner of Flux and Function LLC, Jessica creates functional art that is available online and in local shops in Ohio and West Virginia. In 2023, her small business was awarded an Ohio’s Winding Road seed grant.

Additionally, Jessica is the community marketplace coordinator for the annual Ohio Pawpaw Festival in Albany, Ohio. In 2024, she collaborated with Athens, Ohio’s poet laureate to publish a pawpaw inspired visual art and poetry anthology.

RECENT PROJECTS: “Repousse Inspired Box”, Ohio University’s ‘Kids on Campus’ program at Millcreek Elementary School (Corning, OH), K-6 graded, after school art enrichment 30-minute classes once a week for two semesters: Students learned about the French technique of ‘repousse’ (a relief technique used in metalwork), looked at repousse art, and created a repousse inspired box in three sequential classes.

“Let’s Celebrate the 2nd graders Art Show”, Art Possible Ohio’s ‘Adaptation, Integration and the Arts’ program at Bundy Elementary (Wellston, Ohio), 2nd grade, 10-week residency, once a week for 45 minute classes: Students created self portrait drawings and cupcake sculptures for their school’s first art show.

“Suminagashi Landscapes”, Spring Workshop’s visual arts class at EN-RICH-MENT of Stark County (Canton, Ohio), elementary age participants, two hour class: Students learned the Japanese marbling technique known as “suminagashi’, looked at suminagashi art, and made a suminagashi print to use for a collage landscape.

Availability

Upon Request

Images courtesy of the teaching artist: