Interview by Mercedes Arnold

Jordan Carey: I'm very excited. Thanks for having me.

MVM: Can you introduce yourself, state your pronouns and tell us what you do?

JC: My name is Jordan Carey. I use he/him pronouns, I am the founder of Loquat and an artist, and a designer as well.

MVM: How long have you had your storefront? 

JC: May 6 was our opening. So just over six months.

MVM: That's awesome, congratulations. Can you talk about how Loquat got started? I didn’t realize it was part of your thesis. I thought it was something you started with Madison.

JC: When I went to MECA, I was mostly focusing on drawing and conceptual art. I knew that’s what I wanted to do, I was going to be a conceptual artist but I hadn’t quite figured out how to approach that yet. I was getting all sorts of technical training for drawing and was getting really skilled at it and bringing it back home to Bermuda. I was trying to get my extended family to be really excited about it, and it was not working at all. So I was like, Okay, well I’m trying to make work that is going to be engaging people who aren’t necessarily very interested in an academic relationship with art history, for example, or being a curator. I also wanted to do something that would be affirming for Bermudians, especially because, I was sort of thinking in concentric circles here. Bermudians were at the center, then it was queer people and the queer diaspora and the African diaspora and it was going out from there. Things have evolved over time, but that’s where I was starting from originally. 

I started to look into what they were already creative with, which was clothes, language was such a creative pursuit, every time I go back home there are eight new words I have to learn. Hair, getting a haircut or hair braiding, and different kinds of adornment. Then cars, those types of things. I wasn’t a fashion guy at all, I was very comfortable wearing the same hoodie every day for a month. I knew I wanted to be a conceptual artist and in order to transition my painting brain into fashion, I knew I needed a lot of technical training, so that’s why I chose that department at MECA. Loquat was born out of a conceptual art project and has continued. That’s part of the reason why I call my artist and a designer because to me the design portion is by circumstance. 

MVM: I think you can absolutely do that! Any designer can be considered an artist. Are you still drawing? 

JC: I do, yeah! All three of us full-timers, Madison [Poitrast Upton], Jiwana [Soleimani], and I are illustrators. We are all constantly drawing silhouettes and patterns and social media things. All of the fabrics that we create are our drawings. The patterns that we’ve done that have the polka dots that are like portraits, that’s really the closest thing to what I was doing before I got into fashion. Those are all number two pencil on Xerox that we scanned and photoshopped to look like that, so I’m definitely still drawing. 

MVM: The patterns you all design are incredible and so beautiful. So I know your mission is to empower marginalized people through fashion and design. My question for you is, who made you feel empowered when you were younger? And then how do you feel empowered today as an artist and designer? 

JC: My parents definitely made me feel empowered and for very different reasons. My mother very, very patiently emboldened me. And my father very, very patiently worked on trying to make me feel safe a lot. I think those two things are definitely vital to my neurological framework. And then the second question is, how do I feel empowered today?

MVM: Yeah, as an artist and a designer, or as you as a human being?

JC: I feel most empowered by taking refuge. In a lot of ways taking refuge in myself, knowing when to retreat into myself and my own understanding, and making sure I'm leaning on that as much as possible. When I don’t take the time to get alone time or reaffirm how I’m feeling about things or what I’m looking for, and I imagine this is true for a lot of people, it’s easy to get swept up in things that are sort of imaginary or trending. Or to get swept up in intense emotions that aren't really real, if you're feeling planted. That’s super important to me, and I try my best not to get that from anybody else because I think that I’m going to be my deepest well for myself. 

MVM: Yeah, one of my questions is how do you rest? You’re doing so many different things and I am curious about how you find rest. 

JC: [Laughs] People are asking me that a lot, that’s so funny…I’m starting to get a little worried. I feel like I get a lot of rest. When I was a student, since I moved to this country, up until I graduated, I probably slept an average of five hours. I feel like I’m living in the lap of luxury as an adult, in terms of rest. I get seven to eight hours, and that’s amazing, I don’t think I’ve ever got that before! I like to read books, I like to play video games. I’ve been playing the same video game for 10 years. 

MVM: What game do you play? 

JC: Skyrim. It’s a role-playing game, with dragons, witches, and wizards. It’s massive. I’ve played it over so many times in the last 10 years. 

MVM: Cool, I had to ask, I didn’t mean to interrupt your flow of thought.

JC: Yeah, so I like to hang out with my friends. I’m on the phone a lot, and the people close to me will complain about that. Both of my parents live away. My mom still lives in Bermuda and one of my best friends travels a lot, so I talk to them on the phone. I like to cook with my friends and be on the phone and sit and pace. Fidgeting is sort of a restful state for me. I’m sitting here talking to you and twisting my hair. I pace a lot when I’m on the phone and that feels rejuvenating for me. That’s my best guess at it. 

MVM: So, your mission at Loquat and products are so focused and aligned. I wanted to tell you that I admire what you and Madison and the rest of the team at Loquat are doing. In a different direction though, I read that you almost left Maine after you graduated from MECA. What made you want to stay? 

JC:  Portland, Greater Portland, was at that time a sort of a hub for artists and thinkers that I was interested in that weren’t getting their clout was at that time a sort of a hub for artists and thinkers that I was interested in. It is also a small place. The good part about that is that it’s not competitive, so you can talk to who you need to talk to. The good part about that means that it’s not competitive so you can talk to who you need to talk to. I had a good group of friends that I had grown close to because of work; Ashley Page, Aminata Conteh, Madison Poitrast-Upton, and Jiwana Soleimani. I had spent quite some time with them all in student groups like the Student Color Coalition. I was the president and I was working with all of them when we were all students. We all stayed close and we already had momentum. When we graduated we just kept doing the work and kept supporting each other’s work. I also developed a network of mentors while in school. When I graduated, it was like what the hell, I have young people that care about me and I care about them, I have mentors that care about me and I care about them. Jill McGowan, who was my pattern drafting teacher had offered me a design job within her space. So it was like, why would I go somewhere else where I don’t know anybody that could help me or affirm my identity as an artist, and then I’d need to compete with a bunch of people? Or I could stay here, which is maybe counterintuitive to growing an artist’s career, and do something that will be unique for this space. I was definitely scared but I stuck close to my people and tried to stay open-minded and it’s been good. 

MVM: That’s good. Do you travel to Bermuda to visit your family often? 

JC: I do. It's a lot closer than the other islands. It’s around an hour and 40-minute direct flight from Boston. If I time it right, I can get there faster than I can get to New York.

MVM: Haha, yeah, I would say that's definitely faster than New York!

JC: Yeah, so I get there a few times a year. 

MVM: So you wrote a piece for the Maine Crafts Association, and it was on what Maine craft means to you. In it, you write, “There is a moment where the opportunity to become more mindfully connected to space arises, it’s a chance to be uncomfortable and require something deeper.” I’m curious, have you had this moment? And what was it for you?

JC: It’s sort of the linchpin of Loquat’s whole existence in a way. I think it’s a thing I see a lot in the United States and also in Bermuda, and it’s also human nature. Our attention is usually swayed by whatever is sort of flashing or popping or whatever is the spectacle of the moment. This happens in so many ways in our life. It’s sort of like a popular movie or something, you get so excited about the movie that you don’t think about the implications of this or that. It could be something like you don’t hold your partner accountable because you’re so infatuated, or clothes that are so affordable or so exciting that you’re not curious about the manufacturing process. 

When I talk about something like that level of awareness, what I’m hoping for is that by doing the work that we’re doing at Loquat, people will generally bring more awareness to their mundanity. That’s what I want at the end of the day, that’s the whole thing. By taking clothes, I’m trying to take this mundane thing and have it become more intentional and more aware. 

If I'm making clothes that are tailored to us specifically, and also affirm your identity, will that put you in a position to experience other clothes with a more critical eye? Or like, well where are the rest of my things coming from? Why are all of my suits tailored to Italian standards? Why am I wearing a suit and not wearing something else? On and on. So that’s why we create such an emphasis on exposing our manufacturing process. When we first started we were making everything, that’s no longer the case, but we try to be as transparent as possible with our manufacturing. We showcase individuals and families that are putting things together. That’s why we do our Roots & Culture series, where we get people who have really dedicated their careers to dissecting one thing or the other, to talk about something that we may have  taken for granted or passed by in our lives. 

My mom used to braid my hair so much that it gave her tendinitis. As a young person, I never really thought about how long mothers have been braiding their son’s hair, and why? Why beyond the technical purpose? What else is going on in terms of self-actualizing? Asking these questions, we do a Roots & Culture episode, such as protective styles in Nigeria, like threading and braiding. Or the episode we did about peanuts when I knew there were definitely some things to talk about there. I was expecting the peanut episode to be one of the shorter ones, but it was the longest episode we’ve had. It’s 45 minutes of talking about peanuts, which is incredible. Being able to hold a peanut and feel all of the history and the social implications of that and break it and eat it, cook it, roast it, whatever…For me, it brings so much joy and so much more energy and reason to live when you’re connected to things in that way. It also helps me with my own agency, when I really understand what’s going on and notice everything that’s happening around me. 

MVM: Oh absolutely, I definitely agree with you. It’s being intentional and the purpose of everything in your life. I think it’s so amazing, what you are doing at Loquat and how you’re telling stories with your clothing, stories of the past and present. So, what are you working on next, with Loquat or outside of Loquat? 

JC: This is our three-year anniversary making product, so we are going back to our origins and really making some skilled leather goods. We will be introducing a collection of leather goods for the holiday season, and all the leather will be upcycled. We are working with 33 by Hand on this. We are developing a weekly shirt program, where we’ll release one shirt a week and you can only get the shirts for that week until the next shirt comes out. We will be making them ourselves and also want to collaborate with artists and designers and push out works with them. I’m super excited about it. 

This is also an opportunity for us to work on a sliding scale because a sliding scale becomes less possible for us as Loquat’s overhead grows. So getting a bunch of used clothing and printing on them to revitalize them and stop them from going to waste and putting all of that out on a sliding scale. 

MVM: Do you plan on curating other shows?

JC: Yeah, I do. I get a flicker of curation every once in a while. But I didn't get into art to be a curator, so I’m not dying to be a curator. I was desperate to do this show [Stay Black & Die at Cove St. Arts Portland, ME], so that’s why I did it. I feel like that's where any of my good creativity comes from, this sort of, I can't not feeling. So we'll see, I'd love to if the opportunity strikes, I would be interested. 

MVM: This has been awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Jordan.

JC: Thank you, Mercedes. This was fun. 

Thank you to Jordan Carey for taking the time to talk with Maine Vibes Magazine!

Web: https://www.loquatshop.com

Instagram: @loquatshop and @yung_sensitive

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