jennyarntzen.art

  Perpetual cards is an idea of card giving that changes the significance and meaning of giving the gift of a card.  Perpetual cards applies the idea of 'paying it forward' in the gifting of a card. The cards themselves are original, framable works of art. The cards may be made from card-shaped art (original art sized to fit off-the-shelf card dimensions) or art-shaped cards (original art turned into custom sized cards). The card package includes the original card, five removable card liners for personal notes, five blank mailing lables for To: and Return: addresses, postage stamps to send the card to five separate destinations. The mailing envelope is a re-usable, new addresses and postage can be applied to send the card to a new destination. The purchase of the card package provides for the card to be gifted 5 times from one recipient to another. The cards can be used to commemorate special events, they can also be used to acknowledge and highlight individual contributions t...

  Last night I thought I would get some work done at my art desk after Mom went to bed. I sat down to drink a nice cup of tea and watch horse videos on Facebook to inspire my effort. It was a fitful night of restless sleep. Too many loose threads, unfinished edges, possible patterns. I have added layers of blue and red pencil crayon to continue building shape and character into the crows. At the same time their relationship is evolving in relation to each other and the context of the conditions of their emergence. Around 3 am I had finally started to drift off when I heard singing from Mom's room. I woke up again, trying to figure out if she was dreaming or awake. I hauled myself out of bed again to go check on her. Working on the drawing gives me a sense of purpose to these strange, constrained and unlimited days. This portal of time that opened up when Mom came home. Mom was awake. When she saw me, her singing turned to sobs of deep grief and fear. She named each of her children,...

  Graphite, watercolour paper Everyday I am out walking with Adele, my rescue dog. Everyday we are walking there are crows in the neighbourhood doing their crow things.  I am entering my third year of family caregiving, looking after my 93 year old Mom. Sometimes the light is just right and the crow is close enough for me to catch some quick pictures for drawing reference. Without the detail captured in the photo I wouldn't have anything to work with. I definitely do not have a photographic memory of these fleeting glimpses of crow life. Mom moved home with me on her 91st birthday on November 1, 2021. She had been living in mental health group housing for forty years and was aging out of the system. Back in my studio I play with positioning the crow figures and then I notice a story starts to tell itself from the expressions on their faces, the direction of their gaze, the position of their bodies. It is the story that my imagination conjures about the two figures in the two d...

  Tyvek, graphite, acrylic paint from video still When we love we open ourselves up to the most painful loss of that love. To live without love is unbearable. We live in this precarious margin between feeling secure and safe in our love and the untethered void of lost love. When we love we feel the pain and difficulty of our loved ones. We will do anything to spare their suffering, even if it means we will suffer ourselves to alleviate their pain or ease their difficulty. We love places, we love people and we love the animals who join us in our day to day adventures. Time and distance do not change our feelings and bonds of love. The attachment we feel is not governed by natural laws of life, death, proximity or substance. We are all of the earth and we will all return to the earth when our time comes. It is hard to know what to say when our loved ones are suffering their own bereavement, their loss of love.  Maybe it is that we do lose the beating heart of our loved ones, the...

 I just realized I missed my granddaughter's birthday last month. It is hard to remember when I don't do the simple task of setting up a birthday calendar.