A community for artists started at the beginning of the 20th century in New York is the focus of Jessica Harvey, an artist and former Joliet Junior College student.

She exhibits “Arrows of the Dawn” Tuesday to Feb. 10 at the college's Laura A. Sprague Art Gallery in Joliet.

“It's mostly photographs, but then I have an installation and a sound piece,” said Harvey, who studied fine arts in Joliet from 2001-2003 before transferring to Columbia College Chicago where she earned a bachelor of arts in film and video. “I collected things from the ground at Byrdcliffe [Colony], so I'm actually trying to make a scent that will be from the place there.”

The exhibit, which investigates experiments in utopian living through the colony, is abstractly based on Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead, the community's under-recognized matriarch and her relationship to nature, spirituality and the failed vision she had for herself and her family.

“They wanted to start this artist utopia out in Woodstock, New York. It failed in the regards that it never became self-sustaining,” Harvey said.

“But it's an active artist community right now so it shows us this in-between space where you're not really sure if you're looking into an active space or if it's something from the past ... so that's something that's interesting about the place itself.

“Also just this idea of utopia and what that can mean, that's an interesting idea,” she said.

Harvey said Whitehead's history intrigued her more than the project that initially brought her to Byrdcliffe for a residency. She has visited the community four times, most recently in fall.

“Some people say that her ghost is in that place and haunts the place,” Harvey said. “She hasn't been written about as much in a historical context. She was a lot of the branding and designing for Byrdcliffe itself.

“In the work there's things that I found. There's this envelope that has human hair. That was something that I found at Byrdcliffe. There's always questioning: Whose is it? Who left it behind? Who's responsible for it? Each time I go there, I find something new.”

“Arrows of the Dawn” is not the first time Harvey has displayed her art at Joliet Junior College. She was part of a 2012 group exhibition titled “Now and Then,” which featured pieces from former students in the permanent collection and done more recently.

With gallery director Joe Milosevich slated to retire at the end of this school year, he contacted Harvey about doing a solo show.

“I have projects that I work on for a few years or more at a time, so I've been working on this ‘Arrows of the Dawn' project and I had shown some pieces at other places but I haven't shown it as a project as a whole. This will be the first time I've shown the most work from this show in one place,” Harvey said.

With a master of fine arts in photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan, Harvey primarily works on projects that are photo- or video-based. “I like to use photography to question what is true and how we tell a story,” she said. “Five different people could see one thing and it would be five different stories.”

Jessi Virtusio is a freelancer.