Jesse
2007–2013
What I remember most is how it didn’t feel like a clean beginning. It felt like I stepped into something already in motion.
I had known Jesse before Minneapolis, back at UW–Green Bay, when I re-entered school and found my way into the art department. I still felt like I had come in sideways. Older, a little out of sync, trying to catch up to people who already seemed fluent. The studios had their own gravity, their own language, and I was still learning how to stand in those rooms without feeling like I was borrowing someone else’s place.
Jesse was one of the people who already belonged.
He was a design major, but not boxed in by it. Screenprinting, photography, fibers, he moved between them like they were different dialects of the same language. I think I first really noticed him through the photography class. Not in a dramatic way, just that quiet recognition: that guy knows what he’s doing. He had a kind of clarity to his decisions. Not flashy, not over-explained. Just deliberate.
That photography club Christmas party in 2007 is still vivid in fragments. Sara telling us all to wear ugly sweaters, then showing up herself in a full bunny costume, completely collapsing the boundary between professor and participant. It was at Jacqueline Yanhe’s house, the darkroom manager who had been this steady, behind-the-scenes presence in the department. Being in her home felt like stepping into a backstage version of the program. The rooms smaller than you’d expect, everything warmer, less institutional. Her husband’s classic Corvette in the garage, something about that detail stuck, a strange artifact from a different world parked among all of us art kids still figuring ourselves out.
That was one of the first times I saw the full constellation of people I’d be orbiting for the next couple of years. Jesse was there, moving easily through it. I was still on the edge, watching more than participating, trying to read the room.
Later, when we were fundraising for the SPA conference in Chicago, I got paired with Jesse for the t-shirt. I didn’t know screenprinting yet, he did. I remember watching how quickly he landed on the idea: that thresholded Leica image, stripped down to its essence, paired with “SHOOT” in Helvetica. Simple, but complete. I remember thinking: how did he get there that fast? It was probably one of the first times I really understood how design could carry both clarity and weight without needing to explain itself.
Around that same stretch, there was the American flag body bag he made in fibers. At the time, it just struck me as bold. Now, looking back, I realize how much it said about him, that he was willing to push material into meaning, not just aesthetics. It stuck with me, even if I didn’t fully articulate why.
After that, we crossed paths here and there. Same department, overlapping circles, but not yet close. It wasn’t until Minneapolis that things actually aligned.
When I moved to Minneapolis, everything expanded at once.
The city felt like a different scale of living, more layered, more textured. Neighborhoods with distinct personalities. Streets that carried different moods depending on the hour. There was always something happening somewhere, even if you didn’t know exactly what it was yet.
At first, Jesse would come down to visit. His mom lived in a nearby suburb, so he had a reason to be in the area, but he made a point to spend time with me. That mattered. It shifted us from acquaintances to something more intentional, two people choosing each other, not just overlapping.
It was me, Anna, Johanna, and Jesse a lot of the time. A loose little constellation moving through the city.
Eat Street became one of our early anchors. Pancho Villa’s, those meals that were half about the food and half about the feeling of discovering a place together. Sitting too long, ordering more than we needed, the table getting crowded with plates and conversation. Talking about nothing and everything. That sense of we’re actually living here now, not just passing through.
Then nights like Williams, the night before Thanksgiving. That particular energy, everyone either just back in town or about to leave, a kind of collective pause. The bar loud but not overwhelming, warm in a way that felt communal rather than chaotic. Jesse always down to go, always ready to step into whatever the night was going to become.
That was one of his defining traits, he didn’t need convincing. If there was something to do, he was in.
Once he moved to Minneapolis, everything deepened.
We started to build routines, but they never felt rigid. More like recurring patterns we could slip into without thinking.
He’d found a cool upper in the Kingfield neighborhood, one of those Minneapolis duplexes with a back porch that felt like it doubled the living space in summer. That place became a hub. Not officially, not by design, just because Jesse was the kind of person who made you want to be wherever he was.
He threw great parties. Not big production things, just the right number of people, the right energy. He’d have the grill going on the back porch, burgers, brats, whatever he had, and the kitchen would be his station. He took the cocktails seriously. Not in a precious way, but in the way he took everything: with care, without fuss. He’d have a plan for what he was making that night, the ingredients already laid out, and he’d just start building drinks for people as they walked in. Old fashioneds, something with ginger, whatever he’d been refining that week. You’d take a sip and realize he’d been thinking about it. That was Jesse, quiet investment in the details that most people wouldn’t bother with.
That’s where he introduced me to Redbreast. Poured me a glass like it was nothing, and I remember the first sip stopping me. I didn’t know Irish whiskey could do that, warm and rounded, with a depth that snuck up on you. I’d been drinking whatever was cheap and available for years. This was something else entirely. Redbreast became a permanent thing after that. Still is.
The other thing about those nights was the people. Jesse had started at Olson by then, and he’d bring people from work, art directors, designers, copywriters, the kind of sharp, creative people that an agency like that attracts. I’d show up knowing Jesse and maybe Anna, and by the end of the night I’d have had three conversations that made me think differently about something. He was generous that way. He didn’t gatekeep his world, he opened it up, introduced people to each other, and then stepped back and let it happen. His place became one of those spaces where different circles overlapped, and something about the porch and the cocktails and his easy way of hosting made everyone feel like they already belonged.
The lakes became one of our main circuits. We’d do the full loop, Lake Harriet, Bde Maka Ska, Lake of the Isles, Cedar Lake, on bikes, taking our time. It was never about speed. We’d stop constantly. Throw a frisbee. Lie in the grass and just look up. Wander down paths that weren’t part of the route.
I remember the texture of those days more than any specific conversation. The way light shifted on the water through the afternoon. The hum of people around the lakes, families, runners, someone reading alone on a bench. The smell of summer: cut grass, lake water, sunscreen, distant grills. It felt like being inside a living system, and we were just moving through it without needing to control anything.
Other days, we’d ride through the city itself, Uptown into Cedar-Riverside into downtown. A completely different rhythm. Louder, denser, more fragmented. The kind of riding where you’re threading between cars and buses, locking up outside somewhere you’ve never been, walking in to see what it is.
We had a Saturday pattern sometimes: Bloody Mary at one place, coffee at the next, then drifting through shops in between. Small meals instead of one big one. Bookstores, record shops, clothing stores we couldn’t really afford but liked being in anyway. The day broken into little segments, each one its own moment.
It felt like learning how to spend time differently. Not rushing toward anything. Letting the day unfold.
We went to a lot of art events too.
That alternative space on Washington stands out, UM students putting something together that felt raw, less polished than official galleries. Part show, part gathering. You never quite knew what you were walking into, but that was the draw.
Jesse and I started to develop a shared instinct for these things. We’d hear about something and just go. Sometimes it was great, sometimes it was forgettable, but it didn’t matter. The act of showing up was the point.
The music side ran parallel.
Triple Rock was a constant. Shows, art events, just hanging out. It became a familiar room you could step into whenever you wanted that particular energy, loud, a little chaotic, but grounded in community. The kind of place where the bartender recognized you but never made a thing of it.
And beyond that, we were always checking out new places. Restaurants, bars, whatever had just opened. It really did feel like we were trying to map the entire city, piece by piece. Every week the map got a little bigger.
The state parks were another layer entirely.
Fort Snelling, Afton, those trips where the city receded and something older came forward. We’d go off trail sometimes, not recklessly, but with that quiet urge to see what was just beyond the obvious path. The woods closing in, the sound changing, traffic giving way to wind and water and the crunch of your own feet.
Those days felt slower, more reflective. Conversations stretched differently when you were walking through trees or along a river bluff. Less fragmented than the city. More continuous. The kind of talking that doesn’t have an agenda, just two people following a thought wherever it goes.
Jesse getting the job at Olson added a new dimension.
He was stepping into art direction, into a professional world that translated what I’d seen him do in school into something applied and paid for. He’d invite me to open houses, show me projects he was working on. I got to see that bridge, how those instincts, that clarity I’d first noticed in the photography darkroom, could operate inside a larger system without losing their edge.
It didn’t feel like he had left the creative world we came from. It felt like he had extended it.
Looking back, what stands out is how full that period was without feeling heavy.
We were doing a lot, exploring the city, going out, making things, building friendships, but it never felt over-structured. There was still space. Space to wander, to say yes, to follow a feeling instead of a plan.
I felt like we really did cover the city. Minneapolis and parts of St. Paul, each neighborhood becoming familiar through repetition. Not in a checklist way, but through lived experience. The way you start to recognize corners, storefronts, the feeling of a street at a certain time of day. The way a city stops being a map and starts being a place you know in your body.
And Jesse was central to that. Not just as someone who was there, but as someone who made the experience more active, more intentional. Someone who would say let’s go and mean it. Who didn’t need a reason, just a direction.
When I moved back to the Green Bay area, that density disappeared.
We still kept in touch, but it shifted. Fewer shared days, more distance between moments. And now, with him in San Francisco, that distance has stretched further still.
But it doesn’t feel like something that ended.
It feels like a chapter that closed cleanly. A contained period where a lot of things came into focus, friendship, place, creative identity, the shape of a life still open and forming.
And I still carry that version of Minneapolis with me. Not just the places, but the way we moved through them.