...thanks to Robin Dreyer for some of the penland pictures

I tried to visit Janet in December during the Toe River Arts Council Tour, but, alas, the trip was not to be. So I was happy that another opportunity occurred in early Spring. Mary and I were needing a get-a-way and meeting Janet, and buying her work seemed the perfect reason to go!

We left on a Monday and quickly pulled into Asheville, North Carolina, in time for lunch. We ate at a quaint Armenian diner in the Grove Arcade and strolled around for "shop things." We found some great ones but those are for another story.

Janet is a co-founder of the Ariel Gallery and we were to meet her there instead of her studio. Janet was waiting for us and gave us a great tour of the gallery and her work. I was fascinated with her beautiful silk scarves and purses. Janet's work is simply gorgeous. You know she is executing her vision when you get to see her process for producing the images on her scarves. She calls the process "vat dye discharge." The main thing to remember is that she is "painting" with a media that is bleach and color mixed together. The mixture has no color of its own so she has to visualize what the final images will look like after being "developed." Only after "developing" do the colors and various accidentals become visible to reveal her vision.

We spent a wonderful afternoon with her and then we took off Celo and Spruce Pine to see her community and the roots for her new work. Her is what Janet has to say about her move to North Carolina,

"My move to North Carolina has turned out to be even more than I had hoped for. After nearly 40 years of teaching I desperately needed a new direction in my life and work.
After 4 years of living in the mountains near Penland School of Crafts, I now feel that my work is beginning to reflect the dramatic changes of viewing the life that abounds around me."

"The scarves and neckties are also an important venue as they reflect the kind of color and texture that I see from my perch on the mountain….the sky, the trees, the flowers, the streams, moss, rocks. The spontaneity of creating the printed and painted silk is such a direct way of expressing the moment or the culmination of ideas."