VISUALS
The South Side Stories The Greater Columbus Arts Council awards grant to a public art project that explores the South Side By Brendan Martin
IN HER ONLINE artist statement, Jessica Naples Grilli describes her interest in the relationship between physical things and the mediums use to record them. “We are afraid to forget and to be forgotten: we collect, catalog and archive so that we may know what came before and that we might be remembered,” she says. “Our lives are built on this premise; whether for show or for sentiment, much can be said about the things we keep.” Naples Grilli continues to explore that relationship here in central Ohio. Born in Fremont, California, Naples Grill grew up in Youngstown. She at-
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tended Kent State University and received her Bachelor of Science in photo illustration in 2009. Her work often combines poetry and photography and how the two can combine to tell a story. One of her recent works, What We Miss the Most, demonstrates this style. The piece is a book, dePhotograph of Naples Grilli’s house taken by its signed and edited by Naples Grilli, original owner, circa 1904. that responds directly to the panPhoto courtesy of Jessica Naples Grilli demic. A number of contributors offer photographs and brief, poetic notes on things people have missed since spring 2020. “I think of myself sometimes as a non-artist, but I have all this experience working with artists and making art,” she says, “But I think I’m so interested in images and language and that relationship that for me, art is kind of the only way I can put them together.” Naples Grilli moved to Columbus in 2011 as she studied for her master’s in studio art at The Ohio State University. There, she met her fellow classmate and current colleague Amanda Le Kline. Detail of map of the South Side of Columbus, Recently, the duo received a Ohio, circa 1910 grant to support their South Side Photo courtesy of Ohio History Connection Stories project through the Greater Columbus Arts Council’s Neighborhood Le Kline and Naples Grilli’s project will Arts Connection Fellowship. The fellow- collect together stories from residents. ship focuses on a specific Columbus neigh“We decided to propose to create this borhood each year and provides grants for free publication that people (in southern resident artists to create art projects that Columbus) can participate in,” Naples engage the community. Grilli says. “We can also find our material
