Hello, friends! My name is Jenny Petricek, and I’m a mixed-media artist residing in Caledonia, Wisconsin, which is about 20 miles south of Milwaukee.
My journey into mixed-media began in 2010, following a job loss that caused me to reconsider my chosen career and struggle with depression and anxiety.
I’d been a longtime traditional scrapbooker, but one day I randomly stumbled upon an issue of Somerset Studio magazine, and it changed my creative life forever. Leafing through the pages, I was intensely curious about the rich layering of paper, paint, and ink in the featured artists’ work, and decided to buy it and take it home with me. However, I was terrified to give this kind of art a try, thinking I wouldn’t be able to handle the messy unpredictability of combining paper with wet media; after all, scrapbooking was all about arrow-straight lines, impeccable neatness, and not-a-sticker-out-of-place; the idea of purposely staining my paper and (Heaven forbid!) applying paint or ink splotches to it was completely offensive to my sensibilities (Smile!). At that particular moment in my life, though, very little seemed neat, clean, or predictable–and so I just dove right in, and never looked back.
Within months, I was back in the workforce as well as the classroom, pursuing a degree in graphic design, and all through it all, continuing to hone my artistic skills in my home studio. In recent years, my collages, handmade books, journals, and scrapbooks have been featured in magazines such as Somerset Studio, Somerset Studio Gallery, Somerset Memories, and Art Journaling.
From 2011-2013 I hosted an earlier version of this blog on Blogger (http://startingoverstudio.blogspot.com), but recently decided after a long hiatus to return to the blogosphere via WordPress. I hope you will join me on this next chapter in my artistic journey, as I reinvent myself yet again! Thanks for stopping by!
Starting Over Studio 
Just read you article in “Journaling” Jan Feb 2020. It inspired me and moved me. Thanks. I am a Californian who graduated from the U of Minn. in art education. I never taught on a regular basis but your book spoke to me about finding a theme that concerns me. I usually just do travel journals or sometimes a kind of diary. 15 or so years ago I made a sculpture out of found materials about my female ancestors. It fell apart do to abuse and moves. Your article has inspired me to try again in book form. Thank you so much! I was just reading through the magazine for ideas on a monthly class I plan to teach on experimental painting. (I used to have a web site and realize that I should try again.) You can find me on Instagram at Ardella 2019.
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Thanks so much for getting in touch! I think you’ll really enjoy working in books. They are durable and allow you to tackle a topic from many different angles and in much more depth than other forms. Are you on Facebook? Unfortunately, I’m not on Instagram at this time.
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