Hello, I am DeNai Jones and thank you for visiting my creative space.  I am a California based product and textile designer, ceramicist, and artist who loves to travel.  Creating comes from a very special, deep place in my soul. I don’t recall a time that I didn’t yearn for the “spiritual hum” that happens when creating.  Personally, the joy of creating is a perfect marriage of the heart, mind, and spirit. 

My journey of getting to this exact place, has taught me so many lessons. The risk it takes to start and endure business ownership, is one that made me who I am today. The good, the hard, all of it!  I founded Petunia Pickle Bottom twenty years ago and am proud to have helped build an internationally recognized brand.  I loved serving as Founder/Design Director, developing products for parents, textile patterns, and collaborations with other brands.  During the last five years at Petunia Pickle Bottom, I used ceramics and figure drawing as a quiet, creative outlet.  It became my space to "slow create." I had a need for something not deadline or season driven.  My home studio is multi-functional: it is where I create with my hands, work on digital based design projects, run the laundry, and answer homework questions with our boys. 

Ceramics became an answer to a personal need, in a difficult time in our lives. I started a night class to carve out some time and space, to process my emotions.  I needed to do something, where no one needed a piece of me. Ceramics was a love for me as a child, in college, and what helped me to find my creative joy again.  The pure joy of creating for no one else, was magic!

Figure drawing is also a first love.  My relationship with figure drawing began in college at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.  I received a minor in the Arts and have such fond memories of those years.  It is something I return to, time and time again. The human body is God’s most beautiful creation. I am always astounded by the beauty of its curves, shadows, and capabilities.

Beyond the body, is this beautiful world we are given the privilege to live in. Experiencing quiet solitude with my family on a desert dune, mountain peaks, or driving our van down a dirt road feeds my soul. Traveling with my family requires us to take only what we need, rely upon each other, and draw inward towards one another for love and support. We adore experiencing a new culture, people group, land forms, waterways, and travel will always be a deep, deep love. My mind is always gazed upon, “where to next?!”

When traveling, my research in color theory comes from these beautiful places. Soft neutrals in the dessert, striated terra-cotta hues in the desert, the smell and color of sage green after a rain, the turquoise ocean blues in Mediterranean, foggy wet grays in Europe, pale sunset pinks on the coast of Portugal, and the list in my mind goes on.... These places have deep impression on my creative soul. My hope is to represent a piece of their beauty in my work.

I have the privilege to be a wife and a mother to two beautiful boys.  Family means the world to me and will always be at the forefront of our life.  I am blessed to learn from our boys, daily.  They make me a better human and they force me to grow, as they grow.

This is a space for me to share it ALL.  The process is slow, emotion and care are in every piece, whether it be a ceramics, wall art, sculpture, or a family travel story.  I am grateful to have you here, and have a place where I can share what I need to express. My intent is that YOU will gain joy from it as well.