Duncan the Basset Hound, our furbaby, is acrylic painted on a mixed-media canvas background. Painted from a photograph taken while traveling from our home in Georgia to see family in Kentucky.
Painted as a gift for my husband, it was also on display in the 2022 THOM Collective Exhibition at the Thomasville Center for the Arts.
A Louisiana native, Jennifer spent quite a while in Tallahassee before settling in Thomasville in 2014. Since then, the self-taught artist and illustrator has been a regular participant in THOM Collective exhibitions and various public art opportunities—a far cry from pretending her middle school music stand was an artist’s easel and doodling in the margins of notebooks! She has often said that “creativity keeps [her] sane” and if it’s creative, she’s probably researched it, maybe written about it, and often tried it first hand.
While her past creative work included slice-of-life webcomics and working with several craft supply manufacturers as a content creator, these days she finds her feet solidly planted in wildlife and conservation-related topics. Her animal portraits and mixed media sculptures focus on threatened and endangered animals, made partially or fully of fabric remnants—richly embroidered and embellished—and other cast-off items, incorporating an awareness of textile waste and its effects on the people and animals of the world. Jennifer is also the author of a series of cozy mystery novels, a cookbook, and has illustrated several coloring books.
Contact
Jennifer Vanderbeek
PO Box 331
Thomasville, GA 31799
