“Individual creative expression is our birthright. It emerges slowly through a one-on-one relationship with our own deepest mystery to establishes a unique place in the larger world.”

— JERRY WENNSTROM

 

JERRY WENNSTROM

Artist, Author - Full Press Kit

 Jerry Wennstrom's greatest achievement is his discovery of a pathway into cosmological creativity. His life journey is unique, like every life journey, but there are elements in his transformation that have applicability not just for artists but for anyone devoted to living the creative life. -

Brian Thomas Swimme - PhD

____________________*___________________

“One of the magnificent things about Jerry is

his profound and courageous innocence. He has

created a friendship with a part of himself which

is in love with the world, and his art displays

that. Jerry is one of the few people I know who,

in a very quiet way, has actually claimed his

happiness in existence.” - David Whyte - Author, poet www.davidwhyte.com

________________________*________________________

Born in New York, this is where Jerry lived-out the first half of his prolific art career. The superficial post-Andy Warhol-Soho-art-scene in the late ’70s repelled him. Yet his own obsession with art rang false as well.

In 1979, after days of fasting and realizing his limits as a studio painter, he destroyed his large body of art, gave away his possessions, and trusted the spirit of creativity itself to carry his life. He threw himself out into the world, penniless and homeless, for nearly fifteen years. And as he discovered, unseen hands carried his life.

He eventually found a home again, on Whidbey Island, WA, which offered an extensive creative community. Here he met his wife-to-be, Marilyn Strong. Beyond the gift of their personal relationship, the pair have toured the country with Parabola magazine’s “Cinema of the Spirit” film festival and taught workshops in dreamwork and myth.

Wennstrom began painting again, this time murals on the walls of the tall, 2,000-sq-ft space below the home they shared. He also started crafting large cabinets and sculptures, each exotic and evocative, embodying paradox and metaphorical opposites such as life and death, shadow and light, masculine and feminine.

In 2000, a Parabola film, In the Hands of Alchemy, was released describing his early painting career, the destruction of his life’s work, the story of his personal transformation, and his eventual return to art. His life of artistic exile was told in his colorful autobiographical book, The Inspired Heart: An Artist’s Journey of Transformation from Sentient Publications (2002).

It was around the year 2010 when Wennstrom sensed a new art direction and began carving the "Free-Standing Women" series. The first four in this series, referenced the four elements, then 26 others were to follow, each emerging with a unique theme.

"The Intuitive" was in process in 2020, shortly before the book, A Second Wind: Art Resurrected began. It was not even completed when photographer Andrew van Leeuwen photographed the entirety of Wennstrom’s collection for the book. Regardless of the style, each piece took between 12-18 months to create.  

A Second Wind, then, not only fills in details of Wennstrom’s early life, but picks up the story and shows the incredible work that has emerged from the last twenty-five years. This latter work is celebratory in nature, integrating joyful embodiment and revealing the golden thread of a long and magical journey. It is Wennstrom’s magnum opus — his second wind, his life and art resurrected.

— Carol Wright - Managing editor, A Second Wind: Art Resurrected

_________________________*_______________________ ____

“Jerry’s insights show all the traces of the world’s ancient wisdom, though he uses his own hand-crafted images and words. In an illustrated version of the Sufi tale “Mojud: The Man with the Inexplicable Life,” Mojud starts out as an inspector of weights and measures but then receives several visits from the spirit guide Khidr. Each time his life settles, the spirit appears with a new adventure. Everyone thinks Mojud is mad, but with a sacred simplemindedness he empties his will and follows directions. Finally, the story says, “Clerics, philosophers and others visited him and asked, ‘Under whom did you study?’ ‘It is difficult to say,’ said Mojud.” I think Khidr must have visited Jerry Wennstrom a few times, too.”

- Thomas Moore, author, Care of the Soul

A slide lecture - Pacifica Graduate Institute’s, Depth Psychology Dept., Santa Barbara, CA.

TAT Foundation Interviews Jerry

See more videos of artwork and lectures on Jerry Wennstrom’s YouTube Channel.

 

Jerry Wennstrom has presented at the Birmingham Art Museum, the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture, Kauai Museum, Chazen Art Museum, Institute of Noetic Sciences , UCS-NAROPA, Bastyr University, Western New Mexico University, California Institute of the Arts, Vancouver Public Library, Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Interfaith Center of New York, N.Y.U, The New York Open Center, C.G. Jung Societies of Seattle and Vancouver, and the Pacifica Graduate Institute.

<— Video, Jerry’s Pacifica Slide lecture.

He has also done over 50 radio, TV, and magazine interviews.