Jenna Valerius

Jenna Valerius is a Boston- born animator who recieved a BFA in animation from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2024. Her practice specializes in the fabrication of physical assets for stop

motion animation, including puppets, environments, and hand- drawn or paper cut details. Jenna is also an interdisciplinary artist, experienced in working with ceramics, cut paper, painting, and sewing, and she incorporates a variety of different mediums into her short films.

Welcome to a little piece of my brain. Here, I can manipulate reality; sculpting, layering, morphing materials until I have something entirely new resting in my arms. The slug in your yard, the moth in your closet, the monster you hear breathing under your bed, they are all me.

Lingering in spaces unseen, absorbing information to then partially digest and regurgitate it back at you, permanently altered, entirely my own. I practice my magic for myself, I can make beauty in physical creations, and feel joy at every step. But it would be a lie to say I do not think of you, too. I take this color for me, but that one for you. I collect others’ scraps, transforming them into my built environments that I will bring to life. Sometimes hiding the salvaged goods, sometimes hoping you’ll notice. I want my animated stories to fill the space between me and you, in whatever way they can.