Jane Vance

About the Painter

I know some people doubt whether it is possible. I have many vivid, detailed memories from before I turned three.

My fascinations even then were with color, complicated patterns, curves, and symbols, such as the love-knot I observed my grandmother doodling on the notepad by her telephone in 1960.

That love-knot now accompanies Buddhist symbols such as Manjushri's sword of wisdom (which cuts through ignorance) as part of the lama-cushion's gold design in my painting, "Amchi."

I first traveled to India in 1985, and Nepal in 1990. I hope never to stop returning. My paintings try to show you what I am just beginning to learn from these travels, to the magnificent Himalayan mountains, to the Great Thar desert, to the shadowy Uttawattakele rain forest. These are places of rare and endangered animals, such as snow leopards and tigers, and of common animals, such as peacocks, cobras, and leeches.

In these places, I know cities and villages, congestion and quiet, waste and renewal. I am a pilgrim among pilgrims, between and in these places, and then, I like to think, the images I remember and paint go on a kind of pilgrimage of their own.

But, next to the carvings, paintings, dance, music, food, tapestries, folk tales, and forms of worship that spring from the people I know there, I think of each of my paintings as being a contribution only about as clever, intricate, and descriptive as a single sentence. In that case, with the work in this exhibition, I have managed to accomplish a colorful paragraph, maybe two.

So, what do I feel? Busy? Overwhelmed? Inspired? Amazed? What I really feel is grateful-gratitude to my friends in these faraway places, because I keep returning to them, and they, by the way they conduct their lives, they keep teaching me. And so, refining my intentions, I keep painting.

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Spiritual Stories

Bridging East & West