Biography
There never was a time in Jenny Tabarracci’s life when she was not inspired by the arts and the natural world around her. She grew up in a family of artists in the culturally fertile soil of the San Francisco Bay Area. Jenny attended schools in Marin County and began investigating a number of art forms, from painting and drawing to music and dance, but had not found her own personal métier. After graduating with honors from Sacramento State with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, Jenny decided to look into the Retail Florist Department at San Francisco City College where she met instructors Holly Money-Collins, AIFD, and Steven Brown, AIFD, who are renowned floral designers themselves. They introduced Jenny to the world of floral art and inspired her to make a career in the floral industry.
Flowers became the media of choice in Jenny’s kind of “naturalist art”. She loved the idea of putting together elements from nature to create ornate, organic, three-dimensional still-lives, which are both beautifully arranged and adhere to the core principles of design and floral composition.
Jenny began her career as a retail flower shop owner in San Anselmo, California. She also freelanced for some of San Francisco’s most prestigious floral design companies such as Podesta Baldocchi, Michael Daigian Floral Design and West Portal Floral Company. She was the first floral director and stylist for Pacific Marin Yachts.
Since that time, Jenny has been presenting floral design programs and workshops throughout the Bay Area. She has been a regular participant in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s annual Bouquets to Art exhibition, and her work has been included in books published about this show in 2006 and 2012. In 2007, she acted as a judge for the California Certified Florist Program. After her induction in the AIFD In 1999, she was a presenter at their 2003 and 2009 national symposiums, and acted as Decor Chairman for the 2011 Induction/Awards night at the "Imagine" AIFD National Symposium. Currently, she serves on the Board of Directors for the AIFD’s North West Region. She is a member of the design team for Julie Stevens Floral and Event Design, a company that specializes in California wine country weddings.
Jenny is currently an instructor in the Environmental Horticulture and Floristry Department at City College of San Francisco, one of the largest such departments in the country. She is a hands-on instructor and brings her industry experience into the classroom. She has an innate sense of color and an unerring eye for contemporary design. She emphasizes the importance of professionalism to her students and inspires them to reach their highest goals.
“Green” before it was fashionable, Jenny believes we can save our planet “one person at a time.” As a professional and an educator, she stresses the importance of the best environmental practices, as embodied in these four words: reduce, recycle, reuse and repurpose. After working on an event, it is her usual habit to truck all remaining edibles to a local farm for their livestock.
