Jed was born in 1976, during a ten year stretch where his dad Jack Dorsey, was supporting the family as a full-time artist. As the youngest (April is 4 years old and Jason 7 years older), Jed was much loved.
From an early age his was encouraged by his mom, Ann, and dad to sketch and provided the materials to do so.
But Jed, who was athletically gifted who excelled at football and especially baseball, was more interested in sports than art.
Still art was always a part of his life. One example was that was his participation in the Dorsey Family Art Booth at the Stanwood-Camano Fair.
In 1987 Ann, seeing what it cost to send the kids to college came up with the idea to sell his art, and the art of other family members, at the Stanwood-Camano Fair that runs each August. Her vision was to use their pickup truck as the booth, hang art off the sides, and hope that the many nice people and friends of the family would stop and purchase a piece or two. Jack designed and built the portable “Dorsey Art Gallery” which could be found at the “Best Lil’ Fair in the West” for the next five years. Ann was right: many of the Dorsey’s family and friends, and the nice people of the Stanwood-Camano area, supported them in this family effort. Ann remembers the father of Jed’s friend Eric Hughes, Dr. Hughes, a dentist, bought a couple of Jed’s paintings at the fair each summer. “It was a great encouragement to Jed.”
Jed’s life as an artist was to blossom after he married his beautiful Canadian wife, Renae. On a trip to Whistler, British Columbia, in 2001 they stumbled on some galleries showing vibrant oil and acrylic paintings. That very week during their vacation he bought his first acrylic paints and spent hours painting in this new medium. He loved it, and thus began the journey that would result in his following his father’s path as a full-time artist.
Jed discovered that he had an eye for design, light and color in his acrylic paintings. His early paintings show the striking, even epic, style that would emerge.
In 2011, after spending ten years in Vancouver, BC, where Jed worked full-time as a house-painter and part-time as a church worship leader, Jed and Renae moved to Indianapolis. Their daughter Willow was born in 2012. Jed helped at the church Jason pastored, worked as a house painter and then as a Young Life leader before he launched out as a full-time artist in 2016.
Jed is rapidly becoming known as an artist who captures the beauty of nature in urban landscapes.
Jed not only is a gifted artist but an inspiring teacher. Students have fun in his workshops and flourish under his warm encouragement and coaching.
Jed’s art is being collected by people from Canada to Indiana to Washington and beyond. He paints places that people love.
Here’s a recent video about Jed: https://vimeo.com/album/3012615/video/140340802
You can view more of Jed’s art at www.jeddorseyart.com.
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