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Jeanie M began her artistic endeavors as a young girl with finger paints and pressed flowers. By her teen years, she had become staff photographer for Foothill College's radio station, capturing images of the local music scene. At 17, she won “Best of Show” in a local photography competition. A brief stint in Art Education followed, but most of her future work would be influenced by road trips on which she captured photographs of roadkill.
Various obsessions led to photographic portfolios of annequins, bands, portraits, and most notably, a series of roadkill calendars –- Jeanie's "Roadside Companion" calendars were a hit between 1987 and 1993, and were even added as part of a prize package on the MTV game show Remote Control.
After years of turning grisly roadside images into biological still lifes, Jeanie progressed to salvaging roadkill in an effort to give the creatures new life - as art. These creations metamorphosed into icons from fairy tales, history, and myth. She met many like-minded artists along the way, and in 1993 curated the dead animal group art show "Carcass" in San Francisco. Many Exhibitions and Lectures resulted from this.
At some point, a business associate presented Jeanie with some dead mice that had gone unused as snake treats; from this unlikely gift, she created her first tiny taxidermy treasures. She has since continued the thematic slant of her previous roadkill works by creating mice dressed as Elizabethan queens, vampires, and her most popular items, angels. She has even designed her mice to be top ornaments of wedding cakes.
For over 12 years, her mouse-a-dermy has been displayed in several galleries, covered in numerous Newspapers and Magazines, and featured on the San Francisco television show Evening Magazine. In 2000, Jeanie performed a live demonstration of her mouse-a-dermy for the release party for San Francisco Bizarro, a chronicle of unique anecdotes about the city where her art has become a cult favorite. Her mice have even made a recent appearance on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
Jeanie currently lives in San Francisco with a big blonde dog and a very happy cat, surrounded by trinkets, ribbons, and lots of fairy tale books.
