For nearly three decades, fine artist Jay Mercado has spent his career capturing the theme of sensuality through his oil paintings of fruit and vibrant tributes to farm laborers and their harvest in California. Then in 2022, he packed his brushes and moved to New Hampshire.
Now living in Jaffrey with his wife, Teresa Marchese, Mercado said they needed a change.
“We really needed a different place and wanted to experience something different,” he said. “I’ll admit, too, we also had a bit of a fear of being complacent. We wanted to see something fresh.”
Mercado, who paints murals, large-scale paintings and smaller still-life works, was born in Sioux City, Iowa, before spending his early childhood on his family’s farm in Nebraska. After spending the first three years of his life in the Midwest, he moved to San Francisco, where he then spent most of his life and career up to this point.
With roots in agriculture — his grandparents were farmers, and his family still has a farm in Nebraska — Mercado has a passion for exploring the untold stories of laborers in his pieces. He said he believes the process behind labor often gets overlooked.
He tries to get close to the source, having spent time in the fields of farms in California and Nebraska to sketch the workers, and has visited some of the smaller local farms in the Monadnock Region.
Some of his work, such as his series of oil paintings on panels, “The Hands of Labor,” homes in on the skill that goes into hand harvesting crops. One painting, “Lone Harvester,” depicts a man carefully grabbing a handful of grapes. In another, “Cauliflower Harvest,” you see the veins of a man’s right hand sharply defined as he reaches to harvest a bushel of cauliflower.
“Most people see the finished project, not the hands who did the work,” he said.
He and Marchese’s journey to the Granite State followed a circuitous route. After visiting with friends from all over, they landed in Venice, Fla., for a time. It was there that a friend reached out to the couple, asking if they were up for a three-month plant-sitting stint in Wilton.
They arrived in Wilton in February 2022.
“We had never been to New England and had some preconceived notions about it,” Mercado said. “But once we got here, it was easy to make lots of friendships. The people fed our souls.”
They liked the state so much that they extended their visit. They ended up buying a house and settling in Jaffrey in 2023.
Marchese said the transition wasn’t easy, but the region quickly became home.
“It feels like we were meant to be here,” she added.
Mercado, who experienced his first snowfall in Wilton, is excited by the art scene in the Monadnock Region, where he said the artists are innovative and community-oriented. And Mercado wants to join that conversation with a communal art space in Jaffrey. The barn in back of his property, he said, would make a perfect art space.
“We feel that being here, we can entertain and have land to celebrate our talents,” Mercado said.
“It’ll be a place where other people can feel comfortable to be creative,” Marchese added.
From ‘artful kid’ to artist
Mercado described himself as an “artful kid,” but his path to the arts wasn’t immediate.
“My [high school] often geared students toward white-collar jobs,” he said.
After graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles, Mercado’s first career was as an account executive in advertising in Los Angeles. The company paid for employees to take classes at the ArtCenter in Pasadena, where they could “blow off some steam” from the grueling demands of the world of marketing.
Mercado began his artistic journey with sketching whatever was lying around. Fruit, a popular subject for still-life, piqued his interest.
“Fruit, what it represents, it’s a metaphor for figures,” he said. His time in those classes served as his off-ramp from corporate life to working as an illustrator, sharing his time between two mural studios based in Los Angeles for a few years.
From there he secured his storefront studio in San Francisco, where he spent 27 years of his career. The storefront helped Mercado share his art with as many people as he could.
“Everybody should feel like art is available to them, and have access to express themselves,” he said.
Mercado’s studio at home in Jaffrey has two rooms. The first holds several gargantuan panels, each 50 feet tall or more.
A second room, this one in the attic, is filled with paintings in progress, as well as some finished works.
A familiar process in a new place
Like many artists before him, Mercado says he draws inspiration from being near Mount Monadnock. The change of scenery, however, has not altered his creative process.
Each morning he follows the same process he started his career with: sketching. “You’re an artist because you’re doing it,” Mercado said.
He also draws his inspiration from the ordinary. The creases, folds on a pillowcase or a shimmering light through sheer window curtains can be fascinating, he added.
Marchese has seen countless examples of how Mercado has curated creativity in the minds of others.
“I would spend a lot of time visiting the studio back in San Francisco, just hanging out, and his willingness to share his passion has always been at the forefront,” she said. She recalled one repeat visitor to his studio, a woman who could only speak Mandarin.
“He would sit and listen to her, not knowing how to speak the language, and watch her point out pieces and speak to her about his process for the different works,” she said. “… He doesn’t necessarily teach, but rather holds space for people to experience the joy that comes with being creative.”
Sitting in his studio for an interview last week, Mercado reflected on the feelings that arose early in his career.
“I didn’t start professionally working in art until my early 30s,” he said. “It really took a lot of listening to myself, asking, ‘What would I find fulfilling?’ to make the jump … It’s been a challenge, but a beautiful challenge.”
Mercado said he hopes art can help encourage people to find their independence.
“Maybe it’s trying out a painting class you’ve been eyeing for weeks,” he said. “Or it’s taking a leap to change your career. …
It’s never too late.”