Biography

Jackie Ehle loves animals and music, combining the two in her art -- and adding a little of her own special lagniappe -- to create whimsical pet portraits and various other creations.
Born New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 7, 1968, Jackie moved to Alexandria, Virginia, where she attended T.C. Williams High School and was voted "Most Successful" at Class of '86's 10th Reunion.
Jackie attended Southeastern Louisiana University as a freshman and then returned to Northern Virginia to continue a focus on art, her lifelong passion. She took classes at Northern Virginia Community College, the Corcoran School of Art, the Smithsonian, and the Alexandria Art League.
She worked for Torpedo Factory artists Marcel, David Cochran, and the late Clay Huffman, all mentors who encouraged her to pursue her art education at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking from VCU in 1992.
Jackie then moved to New York City where she worked as a docent at both the American Folk Art Museum and the Whitney Museum, where later she worked as a jewelry buyer, and free lance window designer at the Whitney's "Store Next Door."
Jackie also has volunteered and worked as an art teacher at both the Meer
Discovery Center in Central Park in NYC and at the Alexandria Boys and Girls
Club. More recently, she taught art at E. Brook Lee Middle School
in Silver Spring, Maryland, in a program sponsored by the Maryland
College of Art & Design to integrate art into the curriculum at this
magnet school for Gifted and Talented, and learning disabled students.

 

BIG ART MOMENTS

- First solo show at Zeus Gallery Cafe, Richmond, Virginia

- Holiday Show at the Whitney Museum of American Art, "Store Next Door", New York City

-Mary Tyler Moore purchases one whole window display of 15 wire animals (as seen on Animal Planet's Adoption Tails) that she had seen in the Whitney Museum's "Store Next Door". Ms. Moore commissioned Jackie to create a wedding sculpture for Bernadette Peters.

- currently, she is a Resident Artist at the Torpedo Factory Art Center Alexandria, Virginia

- Was commissioned to create a five feet tall sculpture: "Wire Jazzman" for Wynton Marsalis' party at Warner Theater, Washington DC. Jackie delivers the wire sculpture to Wynton in NYC, where it resides in his entry foyer. (Hopefully it still does...)

- Sells to Harvey Leeds, Epic Records, NYC

- Copper horse sculpture purchased for American Embassy, Beijing,
China

- Creates 3 major wire sculptures for Dynamic Direct, Graybar
Building, Grand Central Station, NYC

- Creates major sculpture for Swisscom, Washington DC Headquarters

- Sells Dog Head Sculpture to Frieda Source, beloved wife of Mike Source, AKA Don Geronimo of Don and Mike Show, WJFK Radio, Wash. DC

-Has frequent shows at Restaurant Avenue 805, Richmond
Virginia

- Paints 80 ft mural: "Dogs of Old Town" on scaffolding on lower King Street, Old Town Alexandria, Virginia (the beginning of her Pet Portrait Movement)

- Two solo shows at Maryland College Art and Design

- Solo "Dog" show, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus

- Wire sculpture of life size dog in show "Dogs", Anchorage Museum of History and Art, Anchorage, Alaska

- Paints 25' x 8' vertical outdoor mural of pets for Jenn and Richard Cohen, Society Hill, Philadelphia

- Sells Pet Portrait to Holly Morris of Fox 5 news