Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenny Day
Hi Jenny, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I went to school for Environmental Studies at UC Santa Cruz, lived in Maine, worked on farms and apprenticed with various craft artists, received my BFA at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and dabbled in multiple mediums before I settled in painting. I earned an MFA in painting at the University of Arizona and then began the daunting task of finding my voice outside of education.
After graduate school, I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico. With the change in location, the light and space, my artistic practice expanded. My work shifted into immersive installation that includes painting and ceramic mixed media sculpture.
I am a runner, a gym rat, and have two dogs, a whippet and a greyhound staghound mix.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Over this last few years, working towards big exhibition deadlines there have been a lot of challenges. I have had to ask for support. I have learned new techniques to execute my vision, often remaking pieces multiple times, accepting failure and patience as part of the process to get to the next step.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I am an artist living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I am open to using any medium to explore an idea.
My current work has expanded to the creation of site-specific installations, almost like scenes in natural history dioramas, depicting the aftermath of an apocalypse, biophilia taking over.
I am beginning a new project that examines the duality of resilience and acceptance. An installation depicting a version of refugia, a shelter where life endures in times of crisis. An echo of past civilizations. Remnants of a life lived will elude to memory, decay, and environmental damage.
My work can be seen at Ferrara Showman Gallery in New Orleans, LA, Visions West Contemporary in Bozeman, Montana and Denver, Colorado, and Galerie Benegelstrater in Dusseldorf, Germany.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
Honesty and integrity. Being kind and compassionate.