- Consider this, some people find beauty in everything, even the things that others discard or disregard.

A brick wall, the tissue paper inside a gift box, litter at land or at sea, a man or a woman on the streets.

Why is it that some find beauty where others find disdain?

Perhaps it's a matter of perspective.

I'm Yvonne Greer and my guest is Jessica McGee, owner and designer at LOLA Art Company, next on Consider This.

(upbeat music) Artist Jessica McGee is well-known around central Illinois because she has been able to find art in just about everything, from actual objects, to actual people.

And it's my pleasure to welcome you to Consider This.

- Hi.

- So take me back if you will.

Where do you think you found your eye for beauty?

Was it something that happened in childhood or was it your sort of artists upbringing?

- Oh, well, I've been an artist for as long as I can remember, but I was actively discouraged from it when I was a kid because art was, I was told that art was not a career.

- So were you one of those kids who was always drawing or sticking things together, making little mini sculptures?

- Yes, definitely drawing, definitely doing a lot of unconventional work.

I remember in an art class we were told to do a self portrait and I did this just crazy multicolored hair like eyeballs all over the place and I got not in trouble, but I was reprimanded because that is not a self portrait.

- And, you know, we hear those stories all the time and it impacts different people differently.

How did it impact you?

- I definitely stayed away from art for a while and it happened around the same time that my life got a little bit harder.

So at the same time I was staying away from art there really wasn't time for it in my life.

And then later on in life, I really started using it as therapy just to kind of get a lot of trauma, I guess, out.

- And about what point in your life was that?

- Probably my late twenties.

I got divorced in my mid twenties and kind of pretended that I didn't get divorced for a while and tried to do everything, but deal with the actual divorce and then really hit a wall and just kind of crumbled.

And then as I was climbing back up, art became something that really worked to save me.

- And as I mentioned in the intro, you find art in just about everything.

Did you study art or did you just decide to go at it?

- I took an art history class in college and then decided that I did not wanna study art.

I took a drawing class as sorry, I forgot that.

And I took a drawing class as well and decided that I did not want to study art because I don't like structure in my creative process.

I like chaos in my creative process.

I like structure and other areas of my life, but in my creative process I need chaos.

- So where do you find inspiration?

What do you see when you see a plastic container for a six pack of soda that gets discarded on the street?

- So I guess the question would be like, where don't I find inspiration?

Honestly, like in everything and I'm one of those people that see spaces in everything and patterns in everything.

So if I see something that's discarded on the street, what is it made out of?

What's the material?

What is the color palette?

Is there original art on it as part of the branding?

You know, can I use it?

Is it, you know, I do a lot of collecting in California, in Southern California and there's an oil seep off the beach.

So a lot of stuff that washes up actually gets covered in tar.

And so when I'm on that beach, I'm like, okay, is there so much tar that it can't be salvaged?

You know, can I salvage it?

- So you are literally looking at litter that is washed up from the beach that is covered in tar, wondering how you can turn it into art?

- Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I find so much, I mean, I find so much that I can use and there's not much that people give me because now people give me.

There's not much that I can't find some sort of use for.

- How is your art received or how was it received when you first started using "trash" as a base for it?

- I think when people hear about it, they're like, come on.

Like, you know, that's not, or they think like generally when you think like recycled art and you think of, I think when people think of like recycled jewelry, they think of like the pop top cans, like where people used to make bracelet and stuff and when you look at it and you can tell what your original form was and so I think that's where people's minds go and I don't really do that sort of thing.

Like, what I want to do is make it almost unrecognizable, but beautiful.

So I think when they hear about it, they're like, oh, okay.

Yeah, I know my kid makes macaroni posters.

And then when they see it, I think they're really kind of like, wow, that is not what I expected.

So it's unexpected.

- And there is a real environmental concern about the way you go about collecting the "trash" for your art.

Tell me why the environment is so important to you.

- So, gosh, why is it?

I don't know.

It's just, I just feel like that we're supposed to.

We're like stewards of the earth, we're supposed to take care of it.

I don't know what it would feel like not to be an environmentalist.

So it's hard for me to say why I am 'cause I just feel like that's what you're supposed to do.

- Everybody should be.

- Yeah, you take care of the planet because, you know, you have kids that are, we want those things to be here for kids.

I think one of the coolest things that I ever experienced was the first time I saw a whale in nature.

I mean, like cried, I cried like a baby.

I called my husband, I was face timing.

And he was was like, why are you sobbing?

I was like, it's all a whale, like a real whale.

And to think that, you know, our kids and grandkids might not have that experience, it's tragic.

And so taking care of the earth for future generations, you know, and I mean, there's so much more into it.

You know, when you're talking about like wildfires, just destroying everything, that's a climate thing.

When you're talking about streets that are just littered with plastics that are gonna be there for 200, 400 years.

I mean, these are our kids, this is what we're leaving future generations.

- So when you are taking care of the environment and turning what you find into art, what's happening inside your head and in your heart?

- So much.

There's that chaos, right?

First, am I cleaning responsibly?

How can I reuse it?

Am I, you know, I'm throwing it away.

One thing that I actually have to tell myself constantly is I am not responsible for all of the world's trash.

Like I don't need to take it all home with me - That's an important distinction, that can be overwhelming.

- It really is, yeah, because you start thinking I am responsible for all of this, but another thing that I think about a lot and I keep this in everything that I do, is having some grace and compassion for the way other people live their lives because you don't know why people may create more trash.

You know, when people, one of the things that I do is outreach for people who live on the street and we deliver cases of bottled water and bottled water is one of those things where you're like, ugh, you know, just plastic bottles everywhere.

But you're talking about people who have no access to running water and no way to wash like a canteen or a reusable bottle of water, you know, and like being possibly exposed to all sorts of bacteria that could make them sick.

So bottled water is there.

- So the need to hydrate and the need to cleanse become more important or outweigh.

- Yeah, so you kind of have to look at all of these factors.

You know, are people being irresponsible or are they living their lives in a way that you're just not familiar with?

Are they lacking necessities that we take for granted?

So, I mean, I do a lot of thinking when I'm cleaning.

When I'm cleaning up, I do a lot of thinking.

- I was going to bring up your activism in the homeless communities.

How did you get started in that?

So that's, my husband and I used to own a bar on West Main and there is a gentleman that used to come and ask us to do work.

And so, you know, he would come by every Wednesday and he would like sweep the lot and he was honestly kind of got in my nerves, really kind of annoying to me.

And then one day he like, I need to earn $50, I have to go to court and I need a lawyer.

And I was like, but you're not gonna get a lawyer for $50.

And he's like, well, I have to go to court, I need a lawyer.

I was like, you know what, why don't I go to court with you?

Let's see what this is about.

So I went to court with him and was really an eye opening experience.

And then I just kind of started walking with him and getting to know him and who he was better and he's been homeless for years and he will probably be homeless for the rest of his life.

And he just taught me a lot about the way that he is homeless, because I was homeless as a teenager for about four years, but my homelessness did not look like his homelessness.

And so he just made me a better person and in that I was able to actually start seeing people who are living on the streets all around us.

- So a lot to delve into in just that little bit of information there.

- It's okay, I enjoy getting to know you better.

So take me back to the time where you were homeless.

Four years.

May I ask about those circumstances?

- Yeah, so my mother struggled with a substance use disorder for her whole life and my father did as well and then he wasn't around and then my mother went through a few marriages that didn't really work out, but our, so our childhood was kind of just chaotic.

And around 13 years old, I left for the first time and then kind of went back and forth and then at around 14, I just left.

- And so when you're 14, where do you go?

- Yeah, that's fun.

- You go anywhere that you can.

You know, I will say for a teenage girl, it was a little bit easier.

People feel sorry for a teenage girl on the street.

And so I bounced from people's homes and you know, about 30 days in you wear out you're welcome, being, you know, just an extra mouth to feed an extra person in the house.

So I did a lot of like couch surfing with friends.

I stayed in a garage for a little bit.

I stayed in a car for a while.

I got, a friend let me actually stay in the laundry room of this apartment for, not his apartment, it was a trailer, in the laundry room for nearly a year.

- So was there ever a moment, and I say this as a mother who's got kids and I would think, oh my gosh, if they felt like they needed to leave the home for whatever reason, was there ever a moment where you thought I should reach out to some authority figure to help me through this?

- I did not find that authority figures were very helpful for my situation.

I think that, and I think that's common even today with the people that I work with today, is that there is a lot of judgment for people in that situation and there's a hierarchy, obviously with the parent and child, you have the parent here and the child here, but even on the street, you have the person with a substance use disorder here and a person that doesn't struggle with that here, or a person with a mental illness here a person that doesn't struggle with that here.

So when you bring authority figures in, where you are, it matters how they're gonna treat you.

And as a child with an unstable parent, the authorities went with my parents as opposed to my version of events and our versions of events were different.

So I did not find authority figures helpful to me.

- So how did you get to a point where you were able to find a place to live and breathe and become an adult?

- I became an exotic dancer.

That was the first time in my life that I made enough money to rent an apartment.

So I had to get furniture, to get a car.

And that was an adjustment period as well, you know?

And that took years.

That was a years long adjustment period.

I don't think that I truly became an adult where I was a little more comfortable in my skin until probably my late twenties.

Like really.

- Wow.

I deliberately didn't do a whole lot of homework on you because I knew that you had, just from your social media posts and everything that I've learned about you from others who know you, I wanted to come in and just sort of dig in and imagine we're at a dinner party and just getting to know each other, but I didn't know it was this deep.

So I apologize if I seem a little taken aback.

- No, that's okay.

- Okay, so now you've become an exotic dancer and you've got a place of your own.

How do you make the shift from that to, I don't know, regular adult life?

Not that being an adult dancer, an exotic dancer, isn't a regular adult life, but it's not the life you have now.

- It's not.

I think, well, even at the time when I was a dancer, I constantly strived to make my life better, because I came from, I don't have a home.

I dropped out of high school, so I have no education.

I felt stupid.

Obviously, you know, people, dancers are down on the list of, you know, you get judged a lot.

And yeah, I just, I felt pretty much worthless.

I felt like garbage.

I mean, I did.

And so for me, it always became, how can I be and do better and how can I prove to everyone around me that I am not garbage?

So the first thing that I did in the club that I was dancing in was how can I become a DJ?

And they were like, well, you can't become a DJ because women aren't DJs.

And I was like, cool, how can I become a DJ?

And I became a DJ, like within the first year that I was working there.

And then how can I learn how to bartend.

Well, you're not 21 so you can't learn how to bartend.

I'm like, yeah, like, come on, you guys can teach me how to bartend, right?

And they're like, no, because you're not 21.

I was like, cool, how do I become a bartender?

And I literally started bartending way before I turned 21 and someone actually called the police and they came in and I was thankfully on a bathroom break.

And I was like, no, I don't bartend here, are you kidding me.

No, of course not.

But it was absolutely bartending before I was 21.

And then how do I become a manager?

Like how, and so I just kind of did that in the downtown Peoria, like bar scene.

- So you had a sense of where you wanted to go, you had aspirations.

- Yes and no.

I had a desire that I didn't want people to think that I was garbage.

So in my twenties, it was really about, it wasn't about me, it was about what other people thought about me.

So yeah, I did like move up and get do better and become, I guess, more of an adult, but I never, I wasn't doing it for myself.

- It was in an effort to have a respectable position in society.

- To be good enough for everybody else, which is its own problem.

- So when did you know that that was a problem?

- Like late, late twenties, early thirties.

I was like, oh, this is, this actually kind of hurts.

- And what did you do about it?

- Yeah, I got into a real good therapist.

Yeah, definitely did the art, started doing the art and just started having really hard conversations with myself.

You know, about the fact that I was a people pleaser.

I was a really big people pleaser and how do I still move forward but do it for myself and not everybody else.

- And did meeting the man that did odd jobs for you at the bar give you that opportunity?

- I mean, in one way, yeah, definitely.

I mean, I can't express enough how much he changed my life and made me a better person, 'cause he's one of the coolest people that I've ever met in my life.

- So when most of us think of a homeless man or woman, we think perhaps in the Peoria area people saw the camps under the bridge, downtown Peoria, people see people panhandling outside of a store or on a corner.

What was your experience through the eyes of your friend?

What did you see that you discovered was so markedly different from the experience you had, couch hopping from friend's house to friend's house.

- These are people who have trauma in, not only just one, like one big traumatic event, like just repeated trauma over and over and over and over again.

And then, you know, they're sleeping outside in most cases and then being traumatized by the way people treat them, you know, and the assumptions that people make, but then going and getting help from the authorities and being traumatized by that experience.

And it's just, I mean, I sat in a courtroom and watched a judge laugh at my friend.

So it's just trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma and then you have the so-called like respectable people, the people that are living life the way that they're supposed to, kind of pointing fingers and saying, well you're not trying hard enough.

I mean, come on.

Like most of us couldn't handle the amount of trauma that some of these people that live outside have gone through.

- So you decided to help.

You feed people through Sophia's Kitchen, you help provide, you help many of them get off the street by partnering with many local organizations and you started a new one of your own called LULA.

And what does LULA stand for?

- LULA is a combination of my partner Casey and my nicknames.

She has a nickname of Lulu, I have a nickname of Lola.

And so we combined it and then we like to say that it means love you like always.

- And what is your tenant mission?

- So we work pretty closely with Jolt Harm Reduction.

And so we do outreach through Jolt Harm Reduction and then LULA, our mission is to provide the food and supplies that other organizations can't provide.

They're not funded for, they're not able to do that.

And so like, Sophia's Kitchen is open Monday through Friday.

And so they provide lunches Monday through Friday and they're great.

Like you walk up and you tell them you want to lunch and they give you a lunch.

There's no questions asked.

They serve like 300 to 500 people a day, it's amazing, but they're closed on the weekends.

So on the weekends, LULA provides the lunches.

And so we fund those and we have a volunteer team that preps those and puts those together.

But then we also have, when people are outside, blankets, tents, tarps clothing, we did a partnership with Zion Coffee, with Jolt and with the Dream Center, where the Dream Center would send a bus out to locations and pick people up for showers and LULA would collect the clothing from donors and we would launder the clothing and get everybody's sizes together.

So things like that.

You know, we're doing a wishlist on Monday for people who recently got housed, you know, just cleaning supplies, a broom and a dust pan.

We're like, of course you have a broom and dustpan, but you know, you don't.

- That is a huge undertaking.

- Yeah.

- I would, I guess people would say, aren't there organizations that do this.

Why are you?

- So there are a lot of organizations that address different facets of people who are housing insecure.

So, and housing insecure, if they have an unstable living situation, if they're on the street, if they're in a shelter, if they're in danger of losing their current living situation.

So there is an organization that specifically addresses that.

Jolt addresses substance use disorders.

Sofia's Kitchen does food Monday through Friday.

So when the pandemic first hit - Yes, not to mention we're in the midst of a global pandemic.

- So when the pandemic first hit, nobody really knew what to do, so everybody just kind of shut down.

And so Jolt actually, all credit to Jolt, was like, no, we're gonna, you know, people need to eat.

We still need to have contact with people.

So they went out on the street and they were doing it like seven days a week.

And you know, people were donating food.

And then food was like sitting in the office for long periods of time and we didn't know where, like what kind of situation it was made under.

One time somebody donated like some food that was moldy.

And as you know, a former bar owner who had like a kitchen and had to go through all of that training, I was like, we can't serve this and that's a dignity thing as well.

You know, people who live on the street deserve the same food that we would eat or that we would serve our friends or family.

And so we need to know where it's coming from and how it's being prepared.

And so my friend Keisha and I were talking about it and I was like, well, surely we can raise a little bit of money.

It's only 12 lunches a day, two days a week.

It's 24 lunches.

We can do that, you know.

So I did a Facebook fundraiser.

I was like, I need like $860.

It's $86 a week and this will push us through to 10 days.

And I have really good friends apparently.

So we raised thousands of dollars.

And then through the work of delivering lunches, we started identifying gaps that weren't filled by all the organizations that are currently in existence.

And so we're gap fillers, that's what we are.

That was a really long way to get there, but that's how that happened and that's why, even though there are other organizations, there are still gaps and so we're filling gaps - Understood.

And there had to be a moment where you took a look at all the work that you were doing, where all the energies are going out and did you go, hey, wait, artist is still in here.

- Like two weeks ago.

Yeah, so I work a lot in California.

That's where I get a lot of my art supplies which is trash from the ocean.

My best friend lives there.

So, you know, in the past couple of years, I've spent like a quarter to a third of each year in California and this year I didn't obviously, 'cause pandemic.

And I ended up going back to California for a week just to reset and kind of figure out what was going on 'cause I was tired.

I was really tired and I was mentally, I was drained.

And when you're going, going, going, going and you feel like, you know, if you stop, people are literally gonna die or they're gonna like, you know, freeze to death or they're gonna overdose or they're not gonna eat that day.

And so you're not trying to save people, but you start to feel responsible for a lot of people and it just weighs.

And so I took a step back and I was like, I thought I was good about boundaries, but I wasn't.

And so yeah, I went to California and I kind of, I did a bullet journal and I like wrote down things that I wanted to do.

And, you know, just kind of recognized, like I haven't taken a paycheck this year by my own choice because I was so into doing outreach that I just didn't focus on my business at all.

And I was like, that's not healthy for me, but it's not fair to my family either for me not to be a contributing member of my family.

Like my street family matters, but I can't only take care of them.

And at the pace that I was going, they were gonna lose me eventually anyway to burn out.

So it literally, within the last two weeks, I was like okay.

So I need to draw some hard lines.

- So what's next.

Have you had a moment to think about that where you want your art to go now?

- I mean, it's hard to think.

Like I have, I have an exhibit in my head and partially in my house.

There's nowhere to exhibit right now.

- And you brought some items with you that would it be part of certain exhibits.

Tell me about these.

- So there's three different pieces here and the one in the middle that's kind of big, it's paper and that's something that I've been really excited about.

It is - It's beautiful.

This is all paper.

- It is all paper.

So those white shapes on the top are actually, my friend worked for an arch, or works for an architecture firm and those are those paint sample cards.

- Okay.

- So she gave me a bunch of those.

A lot of it is scrap paper.

There is, at one point I was pretty sure that I was gonna be a forensic pathologist.

So there's an MCAT book in there.

There is paperwork from my insurance company.

There are, gosh, I mean, there's just, there's checkstubs, old paycheck stubs.

I don't know why I saved paycheck stubs for like 10 years, but I did.

So those are in there.

So yeah, it's just, it's on a cardboard box that was shipped with something in it.

So yeah, it's just, so like, what I'm doing now is I'm just making all of the pieces that construct those reefs, so that when the time comes where I can actually have an exhibit, I have all the pieces.

- Is there a theme for it that you can reveal now?

- It's an ocean.

Yeah, they're reefs.

It's everything that I do is kind of, art-wise, revolves around an obsession with the ocean.

The earrings that I'm wearing, I don't know if you can see those, but these are actually pieces of ocean plastic and bio resin.

So I have this bracelets, which is probably hard to see, but that's actually ocean plastic and bio resin.

- Wow.

- Yeah.

So the jewelry is really how I can give myself a paycheck regularly.

- And t's is really pretty.

- Thank you.

It's totally trash, it's total garbage.

Yeah and - The prettiest garbage I've ever seen.

- And so that kind of what I was talking about earlier.

Like I want it to be unexpected.

I want you to look at it and not realize what it is.

And then for me, just to be like, it's trash.

So yeah, it's trash and everything on the table is trash.

That's, those are toys from a thrift store and then the boxes are actually like, I think one is an iPhone box.

I'm not sure what the other one was.

And I actually fill those with plastic that I can't use artistically or recycle.

So I just jam a bunch of plastic garbage in the boxes and seal them up and that create some weight for the base.

This is, it's not a necklace, but it is in front.

It is milk bottle caps, dog food lids, water bottle caps and thrift store thread and like some straws, I think.

And that's just kind of, I was just playing like with just shapes and ideas, but it's, yeah, a lot of what I do is coral reef inspired and so ocean inspired.

- I like the way you play.

And some folks might also know you from the mural near one world on Main Street in Peoria as well.

And that one's really interactive.

Was that important to you to make it safe?

- Yeah, it was one of the managers, that one role Amy, she and I were talking about it and we're just talking about West Main Street and walkability, which has been something that I've been really into for a long time.

My husband and I started a community garden on West Main years and years ago in the Renaissance Park Community Association.

And that was really about walkability and getting people to enjoy their neighborhood and walk up and down the street.

And so I had already been involved in a West Main mural and art project years before.

And then Amy and I were talking about, you know, she was like it would just be really cool just to have big murals up and down the street in this age of Instagram, where people would want to stand in front and take their picture.

And I was like, I have wanted to paint your alley for twn years, ten years.

So how do I make this happen?

And there wasn't a budget for it.

And so we had to come up with an idea to raise funds and pull some other artists in and we pulled four other artists in to do work on it and we sold bricks on the wall with positive messages and we got the mural painted.

- My family and a lot of my friends have enjoyed taking selfies in front of that wall, so thank you.

- Yeah, it's definitely designed to be interactive.

So that's cool that people use it.

- Oh, Jessica McGee, your thumbprint and your heart prints are all over the Peoria community.

We thank you for your service to our homeless population.

We thank you for beautifying our world with your art and for helping take care of our environment.

It's been a pleasure getting to know you here in Consider This.

We wish you the best.

- Thank you for having me.

Thank you.

- Thank you for being with us on Consider This as well and I'm grateful for those who said, hey you should be talking to Jessica McGee and I'm really glad this show's getting to the point where you come to me and you go, hey, consider this.

That's our vision for next time.

I'm Yvonne Greer, I'll see you then.

(upbeat music)