Jody Wright grew up in Anaheim, California, not too far from Disneyland. Her childhood years were spent with her family that always encouraged her rich imagination, camping in the mountains, desert and ocean, fishing for rainbow trout, hiking in the High Sierras, and working in her parents’ store in a desert resort area. Today, Jody’s husband, her mom and two rescued dogs (both Labrador mixes) reside with her in a large Victorian home in West Virginia. She is a bit of “West meets East”.
Jody attended George Washington University and the University of Maryland before graduating from Shepherd College with a BA in Fine Arts. Her early work began in stained glass where she ran a business for 15 years with her husband.
In 2004 Jody began shifting to painting, starting with her portrayal of colorful dogs and cats. She sought to paint the colorful inner personalities of each animal rather than what Mother Nature had presented. She showed at contemporary art galleries nationwide. She also wrote a book, “50 Secrets Humans Should Know” where she combined her paintings and inspiration bits of wisdom she had learned from her companion animals. It sold nearly 50,000 copies.
By 2008, she began to feel a need to expand. She decided to focus in two equal but opposite areas: Realistic Journeys and Abstract Expressionism.
Realistic Journeys:
While she loved dogs, she wanted to add that same joy of personality and spirit to a wide range of birds, turtles and more. In her paintings, she now began taking a journey into “human and animal adventures”; with each canvas being a new voyage of mystery and discovery. She loves the strength of women and their powerful journeys and many of her paintings feature a woman as the main focus. Each painting has rich layers of meaning. For example, “Journey: The Woman and the Gull” is a painting of a woman rowing away from the viewer. A seagull sits at the helm and looks on. She uses birds such as this seagull (who symbolizes freedom and independence) as companions that join in the quest of discovery.
Many of her works center around water because adventures start so easily there but she can easily move her journey to other vehicles such as a fancy sports car (with a swan, wings outstretched, standing in the luggage rack).
“Shakespeare once said that all the world’s a stage. That may be so. But for me, all the world is an amazing journey and adventure that I take with others through my art. Each canvas is like a permanent vacation one escapes to when they find time for that still and quiet space within."