jane voorhees

The kids at St. Mary Kevin’s are in for a special treat when we arrive in December. We will have Jane Voorhees with us, which means art classes all around! Jane is an adjunct professor at the Kansas City Art Institute and an accomplished print maker and painter. She is represented in Kansas City by the Dolphin Gallery. She does beautiful work, which you can check out here.

Stuffed inside all our suitcases will be art supplies for the kids. Jane will give lessons for the week in one of the classrooms of the school. I am confident her attitude toward living and making art will have a huge impact on the children. Here is her artist statement:

“We all look at things differently. What I see is dictated by where I live and where I travel, dreams I have, who I talk to, music I hear, books I read. My work is shaped by daily life and the love of art that feeds and nourishes the work I produce. Considering these influences from this complicated world we live in, how can I make sense of it, how can I center on an idea? The answer always seems to be the same. Go home to myself.

I think it possible to make work that is as much about time, memory, wind, weather, smell, happiness, anger as it is about the way a place looks. I experience painting like a dancer experiences a dance. I feel it emotionally in my soul and physically in the muscles of my body. Rhythm and a sense of touch are a part of my work; the patterns in the markings mimic the physical processes in nature. I construct layers in this process, like the strata of the land that inspires me. I take common experiences and make them visible so that they may be shared and communicated. This is what artists do.”