Janice Hartwell

Raised in Pennsylvania for the first ten years, with summers in Marshfield, Massachusetts, the middle child of three, all of us could not be much more different, but equally opinionated, intense and colorful, it's a wonder my mother did not have a break down or at least send us to camp!

My art works generally fall into series based upon areas of social interest and defined usually by a style and technical innovation. For me as artist/educator, keeping up with cutting edge techniques has been a passion, as well as, an asset to teaching students. In the early 70's, I received two research grants to invent a high intensity photographic enlarger to expose 4" x 5" negatives on non-silver photosensitive emulsions. In making this machine, using a carbon arc light and a large reconnaissance lens, I was able to dramatically cut costs in doing large scale color separations in photo-silk screen and as paintings on canvas.

Looking for a way to make high relief embossing led me to investigate, first cast paper and then paper making in general. So the work moved from cast paper relief, to dyed paper pulp paintings, to sprayed paper pulp with silk-screen images on canvas. The combination of many media has and probably always will, attract me as an artist.

Recently, I have become interested in intaglio water based techniques and keep finding safer ways to use older traditional print making forms. I also tend to keep learning new techniques and have been working with encaustic on wood panel. I will continue to experiment with wax and pigment not knowing exactly where it will lead. I know that making art for me is a most transcendent experience engaging myself on al levels; physical, intellectual and spiritual, and is a way of life that brings unexpected personal rewards.