Tom Jay was born in Manhattan, Kansas, and spent his early years in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Utah, Nevada and California. After dropping out of college, he wandered the world in the mid-60s, stowing away on a cruise ship to Europe, working in an Iceland cement factory and a Danish farm. An active member of the Northwest Art Community since 1966, when he built the first bronze casting facility for Seattle University. He went on to supervise and construct casting facilities at the University of Washington. Upon graduation, with an MFA from the University of Washington in 1969, he established Riverdog Fine Arts Foundry in Chimacum, which cast, in addition to his own work, sculpture for such notable sculptors as Tony Angell, Hilda Morris, Phil Levine, Richard Kirsten, Louise McDowell, George Tsutakawa, Everett DuPen, Ann Morris, John Hoover, Marvin Oliver, Larry Anderson, Gizel Berman, Doug Granum, Barry Herem, Clayton James, Jeff Day and others. For many years he and his wife, Sara Mall Johani have engaged the community imagination in place-based culture through art, festivals, educational adventures and salmon restoration projects.