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Jennifer Anne Moses

Montclair, New Jersey

JenniferAnneMoses@gmail.com

I painted this in honor of my mother,
who was a dancer

This is my most recent book

I’m a writer as well as a painter.

When the first of my children, now grown, was born, I had an excuse to leave my job, as a magazine editor, and stay home full time. Four years later, my twins were born. I spent a lot of time fantasizing about the good-old days when I could read the newspaper in bed, had clothes that weren’t stained with spit-up, and got a full night’s sleep. Nevertheless, I’d finally achieved my dream of having the freedom to use my time as I wished. I wrote when I could, and as my children grew, I had more time to write.

I write articles, essays, short stories, and books, much of it influenced by the many years I lived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. My short stories have been published in dozens of literary magazines, as well as in New Stories from the South: The Year’s Best and The Pushcart Prizes. My journalistic work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Commentary, Bon Appetit, Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, Haaretz, Washingtonian, Smithsonian, and Town and Country, among other publications. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, from my perch at “ground zero,” I wrote a series of Op-Ed essays for The Washington Post. I also write books---four to date. Like my other work, my books fall under no one category.

I didn’t begin painting until I was in my early forties, and started experiencing what I call “waking visions,” wherein a full image, sometimes accompanied by text, comes into my mind. I paint on all kinds of surfaces as well as on all kinds of objects---cast-off washing-machine doors, plywood, packing-crates, and other refuse that I find and haul home—and believe that the images that come to me are gifts from outside myself, from a Source that I can’t define but can only thank.

My visual work has variously been categorized as “outsider art,” “folk art,” and “visionary art.” It has been shown at Nicholls State University, Louisiana State University, the Acadiana Center for the Arts, the Jewish Heritage Foundation of North Carolina, the Inside Out Gallery in Minneapolis, the Sixth and I Historic Synagogue in Washington, D.C., the Attic Gallery in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Gallery Rue Cou Cou in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the Masur Museum of Art in Monroe, Louisiana, Congregation Shomrei Emunah, Gallery U in Montclair, New Jersey, 73SeeGallery in Montclair NJ, The Galean Gallery in West Orange, NJ, and the Montclair Museum of Art. My work can be seen at Outsider Art Gallery in Frenchtown, NY, on an on-going basis. I also paint on commission.