Jessica Weigley

Jessica Weigley graduated from the University of Florida with a Masters Degree in Education. While interested in design from an early age, she did not begin formally designing for others until her time in the Peace Corps. While living in Namibia, she redesigned the teacher resource center using the principles of sustainable design, human psychology, and democratic space planning. Throughout her extensive travels she has gained intimate knowledge about how structures support life.

Jessica's childhood was spent in rural Wisconsin learning her way around the kitchen. There was the spring planting and the fall harvest; most anticipated were the days of picking, cleaning, and preserving strawberries and snowy weekends making chicken stock and soups. She believes clean up is best done as a group activity and that pancakes can fly. Today her kitchen is full of laughter and warmth, all of which is assisted by her inherent understanding of function, as well as the sociable aspects of the kitchen.

Thanks to her unconventional background, Jessica brings to Johnny Grey her talents in analytical thinking, the principles and practices of teaching, complex organisational structures, project management, high-end customer relations, event and conference planning, and her intimate knowledge of working in a kitchen. Her passion for nature and the contemplative arts inform her life and work. She lives in San Francisco.

Do you have any hidden talents?

I can rock the hula hoop...and I make a wickedly good chocolate chip cookie.

What is your favourite kitchen implement and why?

It's a tie between Kuhn Rikon's Corn Zipper... it has a whimsical face on it and neatly strips corn for my summer salads...and my 10" Switchit spatula in white frosted silicone. It makes for satisfying bowl scraping (for instance, when baking the aforementioned chocolate chip cookies).

What was the first thing that you ever designed?

My bedroom when I was a child, complete with floor plans, elevations, and a proposed budget that I presented to my parents.