- It's kind of like, I just let my brain go wherever it goes.

I wish that I had, like, this is my process: I sit down.

But as I journey through things in life (snaps fingers) they just come to me.

And then, I try to bring my thoughts to real life.

(bright upbeat music) Hi, I'm Jessica Skinner, and I am the creator and owner of JBurgess Designs.

I used to say that I reimagine furniture, but now I say I reimagine your home through furniture.

I got married young and we just inherited furniture from the fam, but it was like a modge podge of things, and I was like, "This ain't gonna work".

And so I learned how to reupholster from there.

And then later on, I got into woodworking.

I literally say, "It just is in my bones.

It's in my blood.

It's in my bloodline.

Something passed down from my ancestors".

So J. Burgess was my grandpa's name, my papa's name.

He was a carpenter and he would make stuff for his farms.

The memories all came back to me and I was like, "I want to try it!"

So, that's how I got started with woodwork.

I jumped in.

When I say jumped in, I mean a couple YouTube videos, okay, I think I got it.

(laughs) And then, there was a lot of not having it.

You know, you got to work on it.

(laughs) But I would say for the most part, it was really natural.

It was just, like, I wanna learn, so I jumped in.

I decide a lot based off of where I am in the moment, what I am feeling in the moment, and I would say that has brought me some of my favorite projects.

So as I was learning about honoring my space and my boundaries, that's when I came up with the baskets.

And so, like, really having a visual for honoring my capacity, the things I could do, the things I couldn't do, it was like my representation of me.

Here's my little basket.

These are the intentional things.

I can feel myself with family, creativity, things that bring me joy.

I feel like this is a very artsy thing to say but, like, my hands were like, "I need to make bowls".

So I started looking at YouTube videos of, like, How do people make bowls?

What are the options?

So I really just play with how I put the fabrics together to make the patterns and textures and stuff like that.

But that was how I learned.

When I first made the bowls, it was the uprising of things happening racially also, and the initial onset was like a reminder to all the peoples about what blackness is for me as a black woman.

Being a black woman is so layered and there are so many beautiful layers also.

I need to share those parts and each basket I made made me think of something different.

It gives me joy, like, when I say joy, I mean, like, big time joy.

(chuckles) For somebody to see something and connect with it is awesome.

And then, for people to understand the meanings behind things that I share, for them to connect with that also, it just gives me so much joy.

(chuckles) (bright upbeat music ends) - [Narrator] WVIZ ideastream received support from PNC bank, which has made a home in the heart of Cleveland by investing in businesses, communities, and people.

Focusing on giving back is part of an ongoing commitment to the communities that PNC serves.

PNC Bank, National Association.

Member FDIC.