March Artist Spotlight: Janis Bergman-Carton

  

How did you start making art?

In my bedroom on a TV table when I was about 7 years old, messing around with anything I could put my hands on. More than once I clogged the plumbing in our house with plaster of paris. I thought I would be an art major in college but didn’t then have the fortitude to deal with critiques of my work (part of it I now understand was not yet having words for what I experienced as a young woman being told by my all male art professors that my work was “too personal”).  Anyway, after 25 wonderful years teaching art history I now am thrilled to circle back to where I began. 

What is your preferred medium?

It’s always been about texture for me. Clay, mixed media, and mosaics. 

What drives your creative spirit these days?

Everything, but I’m particularly interested in memory and place in art- evoking memories of absent loved ones or the historical and material textures of place. I have an ongoing project now called the Texas Cotton Series.

How does reuse play a part in your art? 

It plays a big part. Because I am interested in expressing connections to people and places over time, what feels like deep history and memory, I’m always searching for things or pieces of things that appear to have been well-used and well-loved in the past.  ACR is a treasure chest.  

What compels you to donate to ACR?

The idea of creatively recycling items more typically thrown away is magical. And the community ACR has created in such a short time of people of all ages and backgrounds is a big draw for me.

Do you have a favorite ACR find? What did you do with it?

An amazing sample board for porcelain colors from the 1960s with 12 tiny cameo heads. The heads show up in memory vessels I make. 

Where can we find out more about your art? 

Website: janisbergmancarton.com

Instagram: @bergmancarton