Artist's Statement

   Being an artist is the philosophy of making the most of everything I do, from making dinner with food as my palette to the smell of clean sheets on a fresh made bed as one lays down to sleep.  It's all a part of the greater picture of a creative life.

    Painting is the most time-honored and revered art form.  Subject matter is my first priority, it needs to be not just a pretty picture, but a part of history.
    Emotions! Does it make you stop and think? Does it touch your soul?  If so, I've done my job well. There is no higher complement.

     I was born in Hartford CT in 1961; daughter of  Vocational/Agri school teacher & full-time home maker mother.  I grew up in small town Hotchkissville, Woodbury, CT,  attended Nonnewaug High School, where my art teacher gave me free rein to explore all media.  I then attended Northwestern Connecticut Community College where I worked as a teacher's assistant at the pottery studio. 
     I have always been a treasure hunter and pursued a carrier as an antiques dealer, opening Treasures & Trash and the Jenny Lynn Shop over 30 years ago in Watertown, CT.  The shop eventually moved to Morris and now gradually into the virtual world of the internet. 
     Over the years I have been able to collect priceless bits of history to use in my artwork. Inspired by my family and friends, I now pursue my art with a full-time passion.

Jenny Lynn Plungis
November 25,  2011

The Smith Family 

     The Smith Family: Jenny Lynn's great-great-grandfather on my mother's side, Charles Walter Smith I is one of the men with the oxen. He was a civil engineer who  received his degree from Cornell University in NY.   He went to work for the railroad for some years.  After an injury, he and his family eventually returned from Washington state to farm in Colebrook, NY. His wife, Pearl Patterson, was from Pennsylvania.  They had 8 children.  One of their sons was Charles Walter Smith II, who was Jenny Plungis' grandfather.  Charles II died at age 48, before Jenny Lynn was born.

From the state of Washington, refered to as the

''Timber Line"

     I've always felt a strong connection to the trains, even as a young girl, I was always intrigued by the sight of a red caboose at the end of a train. I dreamed of living in one.  Looking at these old family pictures, I realized it was in my blood.  There was an excitement that percolated out of my heart whenever anyone talked about railroads or old trains.  I truly believe within each of us is a small piece DNA from our family's history that has been passed down through the generations.  Their experiences are recorded somehow in the matrices of our chromosomes.

 "Mitchell & Smith, Puyallup, Washington"

Late 1800's

Spring Cleaning;

A Dragon in My Closet



   While spring cleaning, I found my first jean jacket. Memories flooded in: I was fourteen years old on a 4-H bus trip that took us around New York State, Vermont and Massachusetts for three or four days, maybe more.  The freedom of being in a large group without my parents was intoxicating. I filled the long hours on the bus ride sewing and decorating the back of my jean jacket with a needlepoint dragon. I remember finding, running out of thread and making do with what I had brought with me. We visited Howe Caverns, the Morgan Horse Farm, the Baseball Hall of Fame,  a stone quarry and the Shelburne Museum, where I saw my first painting by Grandma Moses.  One night we stopped at an old Army barracks; boys in one bunk house, girls in another.    

    OMG! There were rows and aisles of dirty urinals and toilets in the bath house! No privacy.   It seemed demeaning. I'd never seen anything like that before.
    There were rows and rows of cots.  As I layed down on my cot that night, I remember wondering what it would have been like for the WWII soldier who layed there before me. How many men went to training here, then to the war, but never came home!  

   But most of all, I remember the ghost stories we told that night. No one could sleep well -- oh, the fun we had that night!  I can still hear someone's whisper in the dark, "Are you scared? I am!" and the reassuring conversation after that. Ghosts are harmless, they just don't want to be forgotten.

     I bought my first post cards on that trip. Still have them too!
    It's endearing how we connect with the possessions of our past.  May it be a Dragon in your closet (or not!).