Despite the Southern rural setting, artist Jesse Mann had anything but a traditional upbringing.  Mann and her two siblings were famously the subjects of their mother, acclaimed photographer Sally Mann’s, series of works: Still Time and Immediate Family.  And, many of Mann’s mother’s striking black-and-white photographs were taken at the Lexington, Virginia home in which she grew up. 

The 25-year-old artist now lives 20 minutes outside Lexington in the mountain town of Rockbridge (“there’s not even a store or a stop sign”) in a big old farmhouse on a river.  Mann – a painter, photographer and current muse and collaborator of photographer Len Prince – works out of her upstairs studio. Her latest project with Prince is on view in the show Self Possessed, which exhibited at New York’s Danziger Gallery this past fall, and is currently at Adamson Gallery in DC (through Feb. 24). In it, Mann takes on different characters: the goddess Diana, Frida Kahlo, Marilyn Monroe.  “When Len and I started the project there was an immediate sense of imaginative play.  A pervasive excitement,” Mann says of their meeting. 

Thus, it’s become second nature for Mann to take on the role of muse, and her roots in Lexington continue to play a large role in her creative process: “I feel very strongly about my hometown. I live near there and went to college there.” Although Lexington, as Mann knew it growing up, continues to change, the mix of creative intellectuals and hippie shops with pure Southerners, Civil War monuments and old colonial houses keeps Lexington vibrant.  In her own words: 

What was your first job in Lexington growing up?
I started training as a pastry chef when I was 11.  Got my first job when I was 14.  For two summers I worked at The Southern Inn and then on and off here and there. It’s in a famous downtown building with a big neon light.  They set me up downstairs to do my thing.  Chocolate mousse, whatever I wanted.  I do well with jobs that let me do my thing.  I also used to bake at the Bistro on Main.  Has all that sort of hippie schoolteachers - really neat place. 

Do you still bake?
I burnt out.  I got to the point where I never wanted to heat sugar again.  I still make cookies at Christmas. 

You now work at Jefferson Florist
I was really excited but then I realized there are lots of funerals, which changes the whole feel of the arrangement. But when I made my first delivery I realized how interesting it is to be apart of all that - funerals that are done the real Southern way. 

Although Lexington has changed since you were growing up, are any places you love that are still around?
We used to have one healthy food co-op and one local record shop.  When I came back from Washington and Lee that all had changed.  The Woods Creek Grocery is still there.  It was a little one-room corner grocery.  It’s now also a neat café that serves ice tea out of mason jars.  And Lexington Coffee Roasters is great. The owner lives upstairs. 

What was the house you grew up in like?
My parents built it right in the middle of town.  My parents were hippie types and it was this crazy rambling house cast with solar panels, lots of porches and a greenhouse.  My dad had his blacksmith shop downstairs until I was in fourth grade.  But he continued to work out of it when he read his way through the law and became a lawyer.  Eventually we needed to make room for a studio and darkroom and everything that went along with that time. 

What was the shop called?
I don’t know.  We just called it the blacksmith shop.  There was this big bin of coal outside we could play in.  My mom did a series of me coming out of it.  It was my refuge look. 

How was it being a kid with parents who were always around doing interesting creative work?
It rocked.  It’s every kid’s dream.  There was a lot of freedom to play.  My dad made this crazy swing.  My mom was totally available.  And there wasn’t anything we couldn’t look at in her library.  That has been the most influential thing.  Especially the Frida Kahlo book.  I just got that book out again and again. 

Were there ever any darkroom mishaps?
That was always an issue.  She had this big knocker on the door.  But we’ve all at one time or another stormed in.  We would spend time there as babies.  My earliest memories are of the smell of developer and the orange light. And being in her studio.  It’s something I reflect on often. 

~Sara Costello 

Go There:
Bistro on Main, 8 N Main St, Lexington, (540) 464-4888
Woods Creek Grocery, 411 Lime Kiln Rd, Lexington, (540) 463-9275
For more info on where to stay, check out horsecenter.org 

See It:
Jesse Mann in Len Prince’s Self Possessed at Adamson Gallery, 406 7^th street, NW Washington, (202) 628-0257
For more from Len Prince

For more on Sally Mann, check out director Steven Cantor’s What Remains, a documentary on Sally and her family, on HBO/Cinemax Wednesday, January 31, 7:00pm.