Jenny Anderson’s ceramic art has been described as communication without words. Her serenity, her quiet dignity, her spiritual nature, all come through her art, especially through her mythic animal sculptures. She has explored many techniques over the years, working in raku and pit firing, and recently in a giant, wood-fueled anagama kiln. Jenny refers to her firing in this kiln as her collaboration with nature. She depends upon wood ash for the source of her palette, learning through experimentation which woods will achieve a certain color range.
Jenny represents our idea of the solitary artist; at the same time she exemplifies community service, having acted for over twenty-five years as teacher and mentor to generations of elementary school children and to adults in Park Department workshops.
People describe Jenny‘s pieces—both figure and vessel—as lyrical, provocative, reflective, haunting. Many of them seem to be a response to an intuitive journey of remembering or imagining. One collector commented that Jenny’s art merits the old but important phrase: “Inexhaustible to meditation.” Another put it this way, “You’re never finished with one of her pieces. She takes you to a wordless place, and you stay in silent conversation.”