Most people don't expect a leather bag maker to have an MFA. But that's where this story starts — from beginning painting in tiny studios, climbing scaffolding for painting gigantic wall murals, in galleries from Indianapolis to Italy. Twenty years of making art that tried to capture beauty and place and the feeling of being somewhere that matters.

Leather found me, not the other way around. One afternoon in Indianapolis, I wandered into a Leather store. Before I left, I had signed up for a class. I made a completely impractical hand-tooled mouse pad — yet something clicked.

In Depth

Jenny earned her Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing from Indiana University, then an MFA at the University of Georgia. She studied in Italy during both her undergraduate and graduate programs.

She went on to create landscape and figurative paintings over the years, earning numerous honors and exhibiting in places such as The Indianapolis Museum of Art, The National Academy of Design in NYC, Temple University Rome, and Palazzo Casali in Cortona, Italy.

Jenny has conducted numerous lectures on her important body of work entitled "Inspired By Dante" (inspiredbydante.com), which examines the epic poem, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri. She has spoken at Notre Dame University, Purdue University, Boston College, and numerous others. Her professional painting and drawing works are exhibited under her maiden name: Jennifer Strange.

Jenny's other accomplishments include mural paintings done at the Children's Museum of Indianapolis, The Indiana State Museum, and The Indianapolis Zoo.

In 2016, Jenny and her husband, Dave, purchased their home in Bozeman, Montana. What began as a simple exploration of leather as a means of creative expression has evolved since. She has turned a creative passion into a thriving one-woman workshop, focusing on the beauty of the surroundings found in the mountains, rivers, and the American West.

Bridger Leather is what happens when a fine artist stops working on canvas and walls — and starts working in bison hide, alligator, and the skins of the American West. Jenny calls it leather work. Her customers call it Art You Can Carry.

Jenny splits her time between Bozeman, Montana and Indianapolis, Indiana.