Fay Jones (born 1936, birth name Fay Bailey) is an American artist, based in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is the List of municipalities in Washington, most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington (state), Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the List of Unit ...

. A large number of her works are exhibited in public places in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

, including a mural in the Westlake Station of the

Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel The Downtown Seattle Transit Tunnel (DSTT), formerly also known as the Metro Bus Tunnel, is a pair of public transit tunnels in Seattle, Washington, United States. The double-track tunnel and its four stations serve Link light rail trains ...

and a painting in Seattle's opera house,

McCaw Hall Marion Oliver McCaw Hall (often abbreviated to McCaw Hall) is a performing arts hall in Seattle, Washington. Located on the grounds of the Seattle Center and owned by the city of Seattle, McCaw Hall's two principal tenants are Seattle Opera and ...

. A 1986 retrospective organized by the

Boise Art Museum The Boise Art Museum (BAM) is located at 670 Julia Davis Drive in Boise, Idaho, and is part of a series of public museums and cultural attractions in Julia Davis Park. It is the permanent home of a growing collection of contemporary realism, mod ...

also showed at the

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington (state), Washington, United States. The museum operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum in ...

.Sheila Farr
Jones, Fay (b. 1936)
HistoryLink essay No. 10129, 2012-06-10. Accessed online 2013-10-13

Early life

In 1953, she graduated from high school and enrolled in the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

(RISD). In 1956, she met RISD drawing instructor Robert C. Jones (b. 1930); they married the following year, and moved to Seattle in 1960, where Robert Jones became a member of the art faculty of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. They had four children, born between 1958 and 1966.

Career

She had her first exhibit in 1970 at the Francine Seders Gallery in Seattle. In the mid-1980s, she was selected, along with

Roger Shimomura Roger Shimomura (born Roger Yutaka Shimomura in 1939 in Seattle) is an American artist and a retired professor at the University of Kansas, having taught there from 1969 to 2004. His art, showcased across the United States, Japan, Canada, Mexico, a ...

and Gene Gentry McMahon to design major murals for the Westlake Station of the new

. A 1996 retrospective organized by the Boise Art Museum also showed at the Seattle Art Museum and at the Washington State University Museum of Art in

Pullman, Washington Pullman is the most populous city in Whitman County, located in southeastern Washington within the Palouse region of the Pacific Northwest. The population was 32,901 at the 2020 census, and estimated to be 32,508 in 2022. Originally founded as ...

. She illustrated one card
Stasis
for the debut set of the soon-to-be-famous Magic: The Gathering trading card game as a favor for her nephew, the game's designer

Richard Garfield Richard Channing Garfield (born June 26, 1963) is an American mathematician, inventor, and game designer. Garfield created '' Magic: The Gathering'', which is considered to be the first collectible card game (CCG). ''Magic'' debuted in 1993, and ...

. In 2006, Jones and her husband had a joint show at the Casa Museo Gene Byron in Guanajuato. They maintain a primary residence in

West Seattle West Seattle is a conglomeration of List of neighborhoods in Seattle, neighborhoods in Seattle, Washington, United States. It comprises two of the List of neighborhoods in Seattle, thirteen districts, Delridge, Seattle, Delridge and Southwest, ...

. Her work is included in the permanent collection of the

Awards

*2013 - Joan Mitchell Painters and Sculptors grant *2006 - Seattle Art Museum’s Poncho Artist of the Year award *1983 and 1990 - grants from the NEA *1984 - Washington State Arts Commission *1989 - La Napoli Art Foundation

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Fay 1936 births Living people 20th-century American painters 21st-century American painters American watercolorists Painters from Boston Artists from Washington (state) Painters from Washington (state) Artists from Seattle 20th-century American printmakers 20th-century American women painters 21st-century American women painters American women watercolorists American women printmakers