PEACE THROUGH PAINTING
Retired nurse finds time to explore long-held artistic talent
If there was one thing that was always clear in Janis Schwarz’s mind, it was that she was going to be a nurse. Even when she flashed some potential as an artist in high school and was encouraged to pursue that talent, Janis was certain of her life’s calling.
She did follow through on that dream and cared for others for 39 years, but Janis eventually did come back around to find the artist within. Now retired, she spends relaxing hours in front of a canvas, turning her love of nature and serenity into works of art that she finds herself surprised to know other people want to buy.
Schwarz, of Berlin, will be among the dozens of artists who will show their works during the Clark County Spring into the Arts Tour on April 24-25 at locations across the county. She will be a guest artist at the studio of her brother and sister-in-law, Paul and Jane Pitt of Greenwood. The Pitts have collaborated with Janis to individualize her paintings with unique frames and will also be showing their artistic creations during the tour.
Janis group up in Waukesha and knew already as a young girl what her career would be. Her mother and two of her aunts were nurses, and those are the footsteps she would follow. Art was never much more than a class she had to take to graduate.
“I did a required one-semester art class in high school,” she said. That led to a project she took to the Wisconsin State Fair, and her art teacher and a counselor urged her to use her talents further.
“I said, ‘Well, no, I was going to be a nurse since I was 3 since my mom was a nurse,’” Janis said. “I was very adamant as a child growing up that I was going to be a nurse.”
Janis attended the nursing program at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Marshfield from 1978-81. A job took her to Berlin, where she and her husband raised two children. Although Janis kept her artistic side alive with home projects like making personalized greeting cards or decorating for her son and daughter, the thought of one day becoming a professional painter was not on her mind.
That changed one day in the late 1980s when a friend asked her to take an oil painting class.
“Because she didn’t drive, she said, ‘If I buy the paints, will you drive?’” Janis said. That sounded like a fair deal, so off they went.
Janis discovered quickly that she enjoyed working with oil paints, and said the course instructor was surprised to learn she had never taken any prior instruction. With that start, she began to dabble with painting, but only when her life as a nurse and mother allowed.
Through the years, she created several works of her own, then found people who saw her work wanted one for themselves. She did several pieces on commission from doctors she worked with and others, and showed some at art shows in her area.
“I couldn’t believe people were offering me money,” she said. “It was nice to see you could actually fall back on this (for money), but with my children and nursing, I didn’t have enough time.”
Janis is also an outdoor enthusiast, and will always choose a day tending to her perennial flowers or other hobbies before grabbing a paintbrush. Those hours come in winter, or when it’s raining, and she enjoys immersing herself in a scene on her canvas.
“I paint in the winter because I can’t be outside,” she said. “It’s definitely very relaxing. I’m really in that painting. I’m there.”
Janis did a few dozen works over the years but now has accelerated her output since retiring in January. In the past few months, she’s done several pieces for the Clark County tour, and plans to show about 20 works during the two-day event. She’ll also bring a few painted ornaments.
Janis’ works vary in size from 5”X7” pieces to larger ones, including some odd-shaped pieces on wood. She painted strictly on canvas until last year, when COVID-19 affected that as it did almost everything else.
“I ran out of canvas last year because of COVID,” she said. “I went over by my husband’s bench. He had a couple of nice pieces of wood.”
Janis found that oil paints took well to the surface, and the plank shape of the boards gave her a different dimension on which to create.
“What’s nice about it is you can still see the wood grain through it,” she said.
Staying true to nature is a defining feature of Janis’ work. She much prefers landscapes to portraits and often gets her inspiration from scenic photographs. What eventually fills her empty canvas depends on the state of mind she’s in when she begins a piece.
“It’s definitely a mood,” she said. “It definitely has to be that I’m feeling a calm scene, or a waterfall.”
Janis likes the versatility of working with oil pants. With them, she’s found she does not have to make time to finish a piece all at once, but can return and refresh it.
“I love working with oils. It’s very forgiving,” she said. “I like the fact that I can change a painting very easily as I go. I’ve gotten used to the fact that I don’t need to finish a painting. I’m learning how to apply more layers to that painting that was already drying.”
Another aspect of her work that she now enjoys is collaborating with her brother in Greenwood for framing. Janis understands how important a frame is to a work of art, and sometimes the wrong frame can even detract from what’s on the canvas. She was thinking of leaving her works unframed to allow the buyer to select their own, but then talked with the Pitts about options.
She took a few of her paintings to Greenwood, and Paul and Jane added eclectic metal frames with welded features to create truly unique looks.
“I said, ‘Oh, my gosh, you guys, this is beautiful,’” Janis said. “They have more of the rough and raw feel and was a really nice complement to the nature painting. It really added personality.”
Another feature that Janis believes shows through her work is her appreciation for calmness, for finding serenity even in chaotic times. The motto printed on her business card -- “Breathe in and breathe out” -- carried her through almost four decades of caring for her patients, and she tries to make her affinity for peace show through in her painting.
“That is my philosophy,” she said. “I think that’s why I was an effective nurse.”
Janis is glad she accidentally found her artistic calling through that course some 30 years ago, and that she now has more time to transfer what’s in her mind onto canvas, or wood. The fact that someone else would want to buy them, well, that still surprises her. She recalls one particular piece she did a while back that she disliked, but a woman saw it, loved it and bought it.
Janis struggles with pricing her work, and has been told repeatedly that she could charge more. That’s not her mission, though, to make scads of money from something she enjoys.
“I just want people to enjoy the piece,” she said.
And when they do, Janis said, she sometimes finds it difficult to watch them walk away.
“It’s so hard,” she said of the sales. “It’s like giving away your children. You’re never going to see them again. You spent so much time on them and now it’s gone.”
To view more of Janis’ work, see Art by Jan on Facebook.
OMINOUS IN OIL -A sweeping cloud bank hangs over a forest grove in one of Janis Schawrz’s oil paintings.
NATURAL BEAUTY -A nature lover, Schwarz strives to incorporate a sense of tranquility into her oil paintings.
