At 3 years old, M. Jen Griffin would swipe the cardboard from her father’s freshly laundered shirts to draw on. When there was no more shirt cardboard, she used paper towels. Her father, an amateur artist himself, soon taught her how to sharpen pencils with a knife.
She began taking art classes in her native Toronto at 8, and later studied painting and illustration at Malaspina College, with Vjeko Sager at Emily Carr School of Art + Design, and with Jenny Kroik and Beth Rodway at 92nd Street Y.
Jen lives, draws and writes in Vancouver and New York City, where she continues to eschew conventional canvases and sharpeners.