Jan Bailey (1944 - )

Earth Angel, 2007, colored pencil on paper

 

"Am I thinking [when I draw]? Am I wrestling with my thoughts? Not much. I do know that I am tapping into the child inside, and it feels delicious."

Jan Bailey is a well-respected poet and the author of three poetry collections. Jan continued to write until the death of her mother several years ago. After this pivotal event, she found herself with a serious case of writer’s block at the age of 63.

“To be frank, I didn’t want to write the usual loss-of-mother poems, and I found myself completely bored with my thoughts,” she explains with a wry smile. She considered exploring visual arts instead of words, but she hesitated…until she found a solution: “I was terrified of paint, brushes, and palettes, but there was nothing frightening about holding a pencil!”

Confluence, 2006, colored pencil on paper

The urge to create took a new direction and emerged in her passionate drawings of everyday items…a cat on a chair or a vase of flowers…these common objects are handy references for her vivid imagination. She calls her artwork “play” and gleefully describes how she often breaks pencil points while pressing down hard on paper to create areas of satisfyingly rich color.

Valentine’s, 2008, colored pencil on paper

Island Loveseat, 2007, colored pencil on paper

Originally from South Carolina, Jan has lived for many years on Monhegan Island, Maine—a tiny oasis of beauty 12 miles out to sea. The jewel-like palette of her works attest to her love of light and color. During the dark northern winter, she craves color, and through her work is able to tap into a warmer, brighter place.

(This profile will be published in Steven Aimone’s forthcoming book, Live and Learn: Expressive Drawing, to be published by Lark Books in the fall of 2009.)

Jan Bailey on Monhegan Island, 2008
photo by Steve Aimone