Now fully grown and working as an artist, Carpenter has discovered a better way to depict women - by embroidering the images onto canvas.
Before she took up the needle, she studied art at Rutgers University, when she was enrolled in the prestigious Mason Gross division. She majored in painting, working primarily with oils, and graduated in 2002.
Yet the decision to study art began long before she took up the brush.
"I wanted to be an artist for as long as I can remember," said Carpenter at a recent interview.
Finding the threads
For her thesis presentation, she did eight figural paintings that dealt with various women's issues.
"I was interested in the way women represent their own bodies compared to the way men do," she said.
She felt that much of the art she had seen depicted women in various stereotypes - such as goddesses or whores - showing "nothing genuine," which is what she wanted to do.
In person, Carpenter comes across as genuine, much in the way that she aspires to with her art. She has an open face and an unguarded demeanor, seeming perhaps suited for social work or teaching, where inspiring trust is paramount.
Yet one look at her work, which depicts women in ordinary positions, shows her talent. Her art gives a view of women that is at once contemporary and iconic.
Began showing her work
Several years ago, she came to Hudson County and began showing her work. She was involved in the 2006 and 2007 Jersey City Studio Tours and the 2006 Hoboken Artist Studio Tour. But it was during the spring of 2007 that she found her medium of working with embroidery while working on a show called Mother of God. The show had to do with the Virgin Mary and ideas involving feminism.
Carpenter chose to paint a figure in oil, which she repeated in a series six times. Yet with each successive figure, she embroidered more words in white thread over the figure, so that by the sixth frame, the woman was invisible.
Since the series was Mother of God, she chose words from the Hail Mary prayer, and threaded them over and over on the canvas, which was titled "They Have Numbered All My Bones." Not only was the picture well-received, but it was eventually purchased by a fellow artist in Jersey City.
Her inclination to embroider comes naturally, as she learned how to sew by watching her mother, whose parents were from Sicily. She says that her grandfather was a seamstress and her grandmother also sewed.
"I taught myself actually," said Carpenter. "We were poor growing up, so my mother sewed our clothes. I would look at the clothes and try to figure out how to do it."
Hard work
While painting is difficult, it is nothing compared to the painstaking work of embroidery, which requires long hours bent over a canvas.
For the figure work, in which she "draws" the women with embroidery, she has gotten it down to approximately 8 hours. But the larger pieces can take much longer. She said that they require an entire month sometimes.
Her latest series titled Homespun, which is on display at Dames Espresso Bar in Hoboken, pictures women doing very hard work - it was inspired by women prostitutes and lace makers.
She described the process of creating the work as painful, particularly since she worked from poses that she struck herself. Before creating images that she embroiders, she has a photographer take pictures of her in various poses, which she looks at before she begins to sew.
"I never learned how to direct a model," says Carpenter. "I think it will always be me [modeling poses]." She added, "It gives me ideas to work on other things."
Trying out various poses the way other women try on clothes also gives her access to the feelings associated with the stances.
"I'm very conflicted. Sometimes I feel very empowered, sometimes I feel weak," she said. "This past series [Homespun], I felt guilty. But these are all emotions I want to come through in the work. So it is worth it to go through it."
Iconic images
In addition to her images of women, Carpenter also plans to do a piece on a two-story house. She has begun the preliminary drawings of the work, which will eventually become a three-dimensional project. She intends to craft the house out of lace and thread.
"I'm learning how to make lace and that's how I'm going to form the structure of the house," she said.
She said that it is supposed to be the quintessential image of a house.
Carpenter is also in a group show titled The Information is not Knowledge that will be part of this year's Jersey City Studio Tour. For the show, each artist was given one volume from a set of encyclopedias and told to turn it into art. She chose to seal her book shut, sewing it closed with gold thread; yet she carved a large circle through the cover so several layers of text are visible.
But that doesn't mean that her series about women have stopped. She recently finished Homespun 2, which depicts the pain of office work.
"I actually want to do a series on pregnant women," she says. She said she also wants to incorporate photos she has of her mom doing housework and getting ready to go out.
Although Carpenter grew up lacking material goods, her family did not lack in love. She speaks highly of her mother, describing her as "very sweet."
"She saved every doodle that I ever made and called it art," she said.
She believes drawing figures with embroidery is something that she will always do.
She said, "I think this is something I will always be doing in conjunction with something that is new and strange."
J Carpenter's art can be viewed at Dames Espresso Bar, 305 First St., in Hoboken and can also be seen in the upcoming Jersey City Studio Tour. For information about her work, visit: www.jcarpenterart.com.
Comments on this piece can be sent to: current@hudsonreporter.com.
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