Today we’d like to introduce you to Jenny Venegas.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Jenny Venegas grew up in the desert of SE Utah. She began college at BYU and later transferred to USU. After graduating, she moved to Chicago where she explored and work for a year. After returning to Utah, she settled in Ogden working as a shop teacher.
A former shop teacher, Jenny transitioned into a new chapter of her life when she and her business partner, Stephanie Howerton, opened The Local Artisan Collective 8 years ago. Currently, they have about 30 local artists selling their creations with them. They also offer a wide variety of art classes from pottery to drawing to jewelry making.
For the last 15 years, she has helped her 16th generation silversmith husband with their hand-crafted fine jewelry business. In addition to selling jewelry, they offer a wide variety of jewelry and metalsmithing classes. Now, as a full-time entrepreneur with her husband, Jenny is focused on growing her business while continuing to make meaningful, handcrafted creations.
Jenny Venegas has always found joy in learning and creating through what many refer to as “domestic arts” — sewing, quilting, canning, and embroidery, to name a few. After taking a break from her creative endeavors for many years, she’s gradually returned to her roots with her brand, Aunt GG’s which is inspired by her Great-Aunts Grace and Glady. Jenny creates comforting handmade goods for the kitchen, home and patio.
Currently she has found a passion in creating little girl dresses out of vintage pillowcases with the hand embroidery embellishments, She has also found joy creating Zen gardens, detergent boosters for the washing machine, propagating spider and pathos plants to sell in unique pots and charm earrings keychains and Utah’s Legal Pot.
Though she has been in Ogden for 25 years, she still considers herself a small town lady and appreciates the rural life.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The pandemic hit our art co-op very hard. Many artists had to find other employment. People were not buying much. It was hard. Very hard. Not only were people not buying, art supply costs increased, making it hard on both ends. Our shop closed for a while, shifted to online sales then later slowly opened.
Being a full time entrepreneur has its own set of challenges. One never knows month to month if there will be enough money to pay the bills and keep the electricity on for the shop as well as our home. But we have worked to put practices in place that help bring people continuously into the store. We have also worked on bringing in income from a variety of avenues so if one doesn’t do well, they others should make up the difference.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
When my daughter was born, I wanted to make her little dresses out of pillow cases. I never got around to it, but last year started to make them to sell to others. I love the hand embroidered pillowcases. I often wonder what the story is behind the person who made the pillow cases when I buy them from estate sales and thrift store. I also found joy creating Zen gardens; sometimes collaborating with others artists in our store with the accessories, As one that works to be eco-friendly, I make detergent boosters for the washing machine. I also propagate spider and pathos plants to sell in unique pots like teapots, over sized mugs and other untraditional fun pots. My husband, who is a jeweler, has taught me some skills and I now make earrings and keychains our of charms. For fun, out of small miniature pots, I make Utah’s Legal Pot and sell a few stickers.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://localartisancollective.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/localartisancollective/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/localartisancollective
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-local-artisan-collective/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheLocalArtisanCollective
