Jessica Todd is a gallery director, curator, writer, and artist originally from Northern Virginia living in Tampa, Florida. She is passionate about building the creative infrastructures that support artists and communities, and addressing issues of equity, access, and inclusion. She seeks to amplify the voices of marginalized, unseen, and emerging artists who create work that is fresh, innovative, impactful, interdisciplinary, outside of the mainstream, and engaging new audiences.
In October 2022, Jessica opened Parachute Gallery in Ybor City, Tampa, FL, originally primarily an exhibition space and, as of October 2023, a boutique gallery representing regional artists. She is the owner, director, curator, administrator, exhibition designer, art handler, marketing department, and more!
Jessica has worked with a number of arts organizations since moving to Tampa in 2020, including Tempus Projects (2021-2023), Artspace Tampa Initiative (2020-2022), Crab Devil (2022), and Morean Arts Center (2020-2021). In Fall 2023, she taught the Studio Art course Concepts & Practices at the University of South Florida. For six years, before moving to Tampa, she was the Residency Manager for the Rauschenberg Residency in Captiva, Florida, an artists’ community serving over 70 interdisciplinary, international artists per year to live and work at the former home and studio of Robert Rauschenberg.
Jessica has served on committees for the Gobioff Foundation, Society of North American Goldsmiths, and Artist Communities Alliance. She has published articles and interviews, curated exhibitions, written awarded grants, given talks and workshops, juried exhibitions and fairs, and served on review panels locally and nationally. She has deepened her knowledge of arts and nonprofit management – specifically around vital issues of equity, access, and inclusion – through conferences, site visits, lectures, and trainings.
In the studio, Jessica is an observer and a maker. Her work is an exploration of the world as she perceives it and therefore takes on a narrative quality. The physical process of making facilitates the examination of her initial observations as a kind of therapeutic research method. Working in contemporary craft, primarily jewelry and fibers, carries a tangible, familiar quality that allows her to speak intimately about the human experience. Her work is included in several publications and has been exhibited nationally.
Jessica earned a Master of Fine Arts in Jewelry / Metals / Enameling under Kathleen Browne from Kent State in 2014, a Bachelor of Arts in Art with a concentration in Metal Art and Technology under James Thurman from Penn State in 2008, and a Diploma of Hispanic Studies from the University of Barcelona in 2009.