by Kathy Span
Imagination and Creativity
can
Change the World
Jena DellaGrottaglia describes herself as “an outspoken mute”, her work, “intricate elegance”. When pressed, she says:
I am not much on words, hoping instead to speak with my art. These images all live and thrive within my mind, my dreams and my soul. They are my voice. I want each image to speak to the viewer, yelling or whispering. No matter what it says, I want the image to tell its story.
Jena DellaGrottaglia
Raphel 
Beloved
Gold Leaf Angel 
Coyote
Jena’s art has a mind of its own, a soul and a creative process unique to the image. While she would like to say, “I did that piece,” she just can’t. Her images have a story to tell, a life and vision of their own, sometimes very different from what Jena first imagined. The multimedia paintings “work” Jena, not the other way around. She often sees images in her dreams, vivid and clear, waking her up and holding her in the limbo between asleep and awake, until she gives into the art, gets up and gets to work.
Jena will sit with the idea and meditate on it until she receives a clear vision. Then the physical process begins. Jena creates the bones of a piece in Adobe Photoshop. Then she prints it out and starts adding gold leafing and painted accents, layer by painstaking layer to make a singular piece. Each image has between two hundred and one thousand layers, depending on the process, and how Jena crafts the many tiny details.
Jena feels she is blessed to do the work, “some days I just pinch myself.” She is most widely known for her imagery used in oracle decks, created with Colette Baron-Reid, with whom she has deep friendship built on respect, trust, and what Jena describes as, “a sisterhood of the soul.”
Jena also creates personal art, as well as her own signature calendars and greeting cards. When asked to sum it all up, Jena looks thoughtful, and then a bit fierce:
I trust in my art. I trust in its ability to speak for me. And I trust viewers will hear my outspoken yet mute voice proclaiming with intricate elegance what the heart knows as truth.
Jena DellaGrottaglia
Visit Jena’s official website
autumnsgoddess.com
Follow her socials @jena_dellagrottaglia on Instagram
@autumnsgoddess on Twitter