Olivia Jensen is an artist, lyricist, humanities scholar, youth mentor, and experiential designer whose work is guided by the ancient mythopoeic tradition of Western civilization. She received an MA in Humanities at Ralston College in Savannah, GA, where she engaged in immersive Ancient Greek language learning. This past year, she was elected a Fellow of the college and undertook an additional year of study on the fault-lines of the feminine psyche. Recently, she has presented papers Katabasis is Key: The Ageless Secret to Platonic Pedagogy in the Southeast Conference for Christianity and Literature (SCCL), The Andromachean Archetype: Forgotten Patterns of Feminine Identity in the Ralston College Student & Alumni Symposium, and Apples in the Hands of an Angry Goddess: Why Paris Should Have Chosen Hera and So Should You as a keynote lecturer.
She holds a Bachelors Degree in Political Science and German Studies from Brigham Young University, where she was elected a Fellow of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) and focused her research on the recent ideological migrations of American women. Throughout her undergrad, she worked as a teacher of statistics and political inquiry, research assistant to professors across the country, German language tutor, and data analyst team leader for Dr. David B. Magleby’s large-scale political research project and book exploring the “myth” of the independent voter.
Eventually, she quit the virtual world for a time and became an assistant general contractor in residential construction, working on crew both on and off the grid and gaining applied skills in electrical, plumbing, roofing, framing, insulation, and interior finish work. Holding contemplation through craftsmanship to be an essential complement to the intellectual life, Olivia is currently building her own ranch and off-grid art studio Tarantula Ranch in the rugged White Mountains of Arizona, which she aims to turn into a residency scholarship for young creatives recovering from autoimmune disease.
Olivia received her formal training in charcoal drawing and oil painting with artist JD Parrish. Her charcoal still-life drawings have won numerous awards, and her intuitive watercolor painting won First Prize in the BYU Humanities Center Social Justice Creative Arts Contest in 2021. Aside from her personal and commissioned art, she has previously taught children’s art classes and high school medieval and renaissance art history, and she freelances in branding, logo design, and website creation. She is also an accomplished classical pianist, having studied at the New Century Conservatory with Dr. Fei Xu and received awards in numerous competitions. Her co-composed choral pieces and hymns with her brother Joshua have been commissioned for numerous choirs across the country, and the pair is currently working on an original musical.
She is the co-founder and director of Project Edify, a retreat company curating transformational experiences for young adults, and is currently working on a new project in youth educational philosophy called The Philosophia Method. In the space between her various projects, Olivia loves to read, meditate, hike in the mountains, paint en plein air, host poetry nights, concoct herbal elixirs, and spend time with her family on their farm.
