Virginia Jenkins

Virginia Jenkins received her BFA from East Tennessee State University and MFA from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. She has undertaken five artist residencies that have allowed her to live along some of the world’s most beautiful coastlines. Her work reflects an affinity to coastal environments and their mysteries. She has taught 3-D Design, Introduction to Ceramics, and a variety of classes at several non-profit art institutions and has also produced commissioned projects for Monsanto Corporation and the William Kerr Foundation while acting as lead artist and mentor to inner city youth apprentices. Her work is exhibited nationally in both juried and invitational settings and she has been published in one of the field’s top magazines, Ceramics Monthly.

Virginia received a 2013 GAP for materials and firings in the making of new work. Virgina is continuing to develop her forms and surface techniques in relation to the ideas behind her work, most recently incorporating china paints into her surfaces. The potential of undiscovered life in our world’s oceans is the catalyst and inspiration for Virgina’s body of work, which is small-scale and abstract. She is developing her work through a current residency at Pottery Northwest.