Jean Owens

Jean Owens is a native of Des Moines. After getting a good Iowa education, which included a short stint at Iowa State University, and a private pilot’s license, she set off to see the world, spending over ten years living in foreign places from Saigon, Vietnam to Ferkessedougou, Ivory Coast, Africa. Her first snapshots were taken with a Baby Brownie, her latest with a Nikon.

Her hobbies have included synchronized swimming, flying, handwriting analysis, golf, and crocheting. For the past twenty-five years Jean has owned and operated a small business.

Three years ago Jean became connected with the national State Art project, taking responsibility for State Art of Iowa. To collect over 2000 photographs, she visited all 99 counties, covering 8000 miles on state and federal highways, and county roads. She found it a pleasure to travel the two lane roads through the clean, well kept, prosperous communities. This was also a trip down memory lane. Each of her three sisters participated on different legs of this journey and each recognized names and places that their father, a columnist for the Des Moines Tribune had talked about earlier.