Work with me

I had seen some of Jenny’s portraits and pictures and wanted to work with her in creating some images for my one-woman show If My Bones Could Speak. I wanted to create something visual that symbolized the work. We collaborated to create these images. 

We talked about the reasons behind wanting these portraits and the ideas to create them. We had conversations about my age and wanting a reflection of this time in my life. A discussion of visually representing who I am and where I come from. I love water, color, and ritual. Jenny suggested the canoe, made the necklaces out of shells from Puerto Rico and others she bought, and painted my face. I gathered the fabric. The creation of the piece became a ritual. I was inspired by images of Yemaya, who is an Orisha Goddess of the Sea, and images of Taino warriors from Puerto Rico. I wanted to create an image of this time in my life that reflected power, wisdom, and love of water. A colorful representation of the woman I have become and continue to create. A picture that my grandchildren will see and be inspired.

This collaboration with Jenny was so wonderful. She was patient, gentle and encouraging. She pushed me to do more, but in a beautiful way. I just followed what she said. I trusted that she would guide the vision into something beautiful and she did. 

Gracias Jenny.

—Adlyn Carreras
Puerto Rico
12.7.22

Jen, I was fascinated by your process all along, and by the time you and I zoomed so you could see items from my femme wardrobe, I was feeling all in, ready and quite curious about what you were creating for me. Not only was I delighted by the outfits you created for both installations, but there was something more. I fit into them … or they fit me. I am not talking about just fitting my body. They fit me, you imagined outfits that I could fit my self, my soul into. And I would come to fit them more fully as I wore them, and for sure even after I took them off. They still lived, that me in that outfit still lived in those captured moments of your photographs. Your vision, the outfits you created for me touched parts of me and asked those parts to join the party, come to the carnival of life where anything can happen.
 
Your photographs are so beautiful and so beyond what I could have imagined. Wow! 
 
I can see you really capture a moment and a whole spirit breaks through in that moment. And your integration of subject and landscape is terrific, they are both essential parts of some unfolding story that your photographs capture in the very midst of the unfolding of that story. And the installation of “The Queen of In-Between” is something to muse on and wonder about. I am honored that you envisioned that hat for me.
 
Who is that? Is that me? Is the Queen of In-Between a part of me? And this is the thing, I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to be a model that could give you what you were looking for, but you made it so easy to work with you. It was quite liberating, and looking back I realize I felt a temporary loss of ego which is a total relief. I could lament the passing of those minutes of blissful freedom from myself, freedom to be myself. It occurs to me that working with you has been much more than an aesthetic experience, though it was certainly that as well. It has been a process of self-discovery even as it was a process of leaving myself behind. It was an experience of entering a kind of mythic place where time disappears and all lives in the eternal now, the moment. 

—Tom Toni Parker
Chico, CA
3.12.23

Jenny is quite plainly the shit. I love this work, the way it is ancestral, the way she shows up not only to the creative process but to the process of any art, she’s always all in. Mouth and hands wide open. Love you Jenny Zander.

—Keila Anali Saucedo
Minneapolis, MN
10.4.19

We’ve had the great pleasure of working directly with Jenny Zander on several art installation projects as well as observing her work with other artists. To collaborate with Jenny has been a pure joy and inspiring experience. She takes the time to understand her subject’s cultural and life context and what they hope to communicate with their art project. Jenny has unlimited creativity to imagine how to represent what is important to her subject and what setting would enhance the presentation. Besides her extraordinary creative skills in body and environmental painting and photography, she also is a very organized installer. She designs and prepares her projects, including gathering materials, exploring locations, making travel plans and all the details that comprise an often-complicated art installation outside a studio setting. Once on location, Jen has a special knack for finding ways to utilize the natural elements that are available. But more important, is her respect for her subject and her uncompromising commitment to the agreed upon vison. She will stand in cold ocean waters, go to icy shores in mid-winter, or wait as long as it takes to capture the right light.

We have more and more come to trust and admire Jenny’s artistic instincts and vision and are most recently excited to commission her to work on a short film and book, Shapeshifters.

—Ira and Nadine Baumgarten
Averill Park, NY
3.25.23

I had the pleasure of taking part in Jenny Zander’s beautiful winter series, -11°C. I spent the most freezing winter of my life in a forest nearby Albany, New York. This beautiful project by Jenny Zander was one of the only things that kept me warm. Michelle J. Chan inspired me to stay strong and focused. I was inspired to make friends with the camera and stand straight in front of it.

Such a magical adventure with these two talented artists!

—Efrat Peleg
Jerusalem
1.15.19