Jenni Barry was raised in the South San Francisco Bay area, before it became known as Silicon Valley. She attended Sierra Nevada College, where she received her Bachelors of Fine Arts with a concentration in painting in 1995. Jenni had two children and moved from Northern California to Northern Idaho. Her interest in textiles began in 2010. It was Christmas time and while in her living room, she noticed an ornament on the tree. It was a foam ball with little pieces of fabric tucked into it, giving the appearance of having been quilted. It inspired her to create two-dimensional art using this technique but in her own unique style. She did not know it at the time, but this technique is called Kimekomi.
Jenni loves creating pieces that commemorate people. People come to her with fabric from their loved one and tell her the types of things that person loved, and together they come up with a subject matter that is meaningful to both the person requesting the art and the person being honored. She also does pet portraits.
For the longest time, she felt invisible, as a painter in a sea of painters. However, the culmination of her life's events was the catalyst for her to adopt/re-invent an art form that honors the memories of loved ones. Jenni Barry's primary objective with her art is to transform the sentimental, stored fabric of our lives, into art you can enjoy for the beauty, and the memories it elicits. It is modern art with a nostalgic heart!
