Artist & Maker
Everything that I create for BRIDGERhome is created with two thoughts in mind: It must be crafted primarily by hand, making each piece unique & it should reflect a love of place. In doing so, it is my intent to create bespoke leather goods that serve both as functional works of art and are endowed with a spirit that sparks a memory or connection to the beauty of the world around us. This spirit of intent is what BRIDGERhome is all about.
With my Mom at the Jackson Lake Lodge
Grand Teton National Park
June, 2021
Hiking the Beaten Path in the Beartooth Mountains in 2021.
This is an epic Montana hike consisting of 28 miles with 16 alpine lakes. We began at East Rosebud Lake and followed it's creek, up to Fossil Lake at the top, then continued south following Russel creek to to highway 212 by Cooke City.
Jenny's Story
Born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana, Jenny has always been a soul of the Midwest, but one with a spirit that sought to explore and experience life. One of the most memorable introductions to the American West was via the "epic" family RV trip that journeyed from Indiana, to the Black Hills of South Dakota, Frontier Days in Cheyenne then up to Cody, WY, Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Teton National Park, past the Great Salt Lake and on to the Coast Highway of California. This trip to the Rocky Mountains and the American West instilled a great love for the vastness of the United States and a love of the Big Sky.
Jenny earned her Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing at Indiana University, then a MFA at the University of Georgia. She studied in Italy during both her undergraduate and graduate programs.
She went on to create landscape and figurative paintings over the years earning numerous honors and exhibiting in places such as The Indianapolis Museum of Art, The National Academy of Design in NYC, Temple University Rome and Palazzo Casali in Cortona, Italy. Jenny has conducted numerous lectures on her important body of work entitled "Inspired by Dante" which examines the epic poem, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. She has spoken at Notre Dame University, Purdue University, Boston College and numerous others. Her professional painting and drawing works are exhibited under her maiden name: Jennifer Strange.
Jenny's other accomplishments include mural paintings done at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, The Indiana State Museum, and The Indianapolis Zoo.
In 2016, Jenny and her husband, Dave, purchased their home in Bozeman, Montana. Jenny's creative attention turned to leather work, quite by accident. While seeking cow hair rug, she wandered into a Tandy Leather store, and before she left, she had signed up for a class. Thus began her lover affair in the leather arts. What began as a simple exploration of leather as a means of creative expression has evolved, and she has turned a passion into a business named after the Bridger Mountains, just 5 miles up the road from her home.
Jenny splits here time between Bozeman, Montana and Indianapolis, Indiana.
Paintings and Special Exhibitions of Art Work can be seen at these sites:
Online gallery for Jennifer's Paintings, Drawings, Mosaics, Murals and Iconography
See my Studio Work & Gallery HereInspired by Dante is an artist's journey through the Divine Comedy. This work focus's upon the poem written by Dante Alighieri; the Inferno, Purgatory & Paradise.
See Inspired By Dante Collection Here"The nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere."