Jenna Martin Leitch is an artist & writer based in Fife, Scotland. A past graduate of DJCAD, graduating in 2001 with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Printmaking.
Jenna grew up in the wilds of Aberdeenshire, and she has always been inspired by her time spent in the great outdoors.
Birds feature in much of her work, with the concepts of the nest, of flight, and of feathers being her main sources of inspiration. Home, family and spreading of wings.
Jenna’s ethereal artworks have a connection to both her own childhood, surrounded by the wildlife and countryside of the North East of Scotland, and family holidays in the Glens of Perthshire. She also uses imagery to create visual stories and capture memories of, and for, her own children. She draws her own children in nature; and with her drawings and paintings, purveys the way being within and amongst nature makes you feel.
She works primarily in graphite and coloured pencil, Japanese watercolour and written word.
Through open-hearted & wide-eyed observation of the natural world, her intricate and detailed works are filled with wonder and imagination. The tiny details that may go unnoticed, and the treasures she finds along the way.
She creates works to bring JOY!
My studio space changes as to my needs at the time.
Mostly, it’s just an easily accessible place for me to exist so my cats can stalk me and shout at me for their seemingly neverending supply of food!
It’s been set up for open studios. It’s been set up for breakfasts and parties. It’s been set up for little girls playing, and pirouetting dance shows. Small ones singing on podium of kitchen steps. It’s been set up for football matches on the Telly, and DJ parties.
We now have a large kitchen table in the space, so once the littles have headed off to school, I can spread out my drawings, paintings, computer or notebooks and settle down for the day.
I had a lovely perfect little space upstairs for a couple years… then once I started markets in earnest, l’ll honest, it got jam packed with market boxes and stock. I’m quite sad about it actually, as it was such a haven; and if only I had a better place/way to store my stock, I would move back up there in a shot, and shut the door on the world whenever I required.
I write words in my head when I’m walking or running. I imagine stories when I’m driving, and some of my best ideas come when I’m driving up the A92 to Dundee for my other job as a vet nurse.
I often wake in the night with ponderings rolling around my mind. As I get up, I write them down for memory and remembering.
Creativity can’t be housed or quantified. It meanders and it moves in mind miles and across air and time.
Having said that, I love that wherever I work, is just that, it works. For my work.
That’s the joy isn’t it… really.