Janet Joslin - Designs in Living | Lost Myths Ink, LLC

Joslin's Designs in Living
©2002 by Debora Hill
MedioCom

She is a large, shapely woman, dressed in flowing skirts and fabulous, hand-painted tops and kimonos. Her dark auburn hair glows with a flame-center brilliance in the sunlight. She is a woman of light and shadow, and her work demonstrates this well.
The advantage of having two first names is that you can use only one -- as an artist, she is known as Joslin. 
In 1997 she lost a lot of money to a crooked investment advisor and left her beautiful house in the Marin hills. She moved to Gualala, to four acres and two little houses -- one in which she lives, the other has become her studio. And like many things which seem to be tragedies, this move has been the rebirth of Joslin the artist.
"It's wonderful to live in a small community where there's little traffic, where you can go downtown and say hello to everyone. This community has a great group of artists, and I'm involved with the Art Guild here, helping local artists. There's a new arts center here, which offers some opportunities for working artists."
She is a multi-media artist; starting with the oils, which she calls her `mid-life crisis' paintings. Each woman is all alone; looking out a window, sitting gracefully on a chaise lounge with a glass of wine beside her, lying full-length on a sofa. They reflect the changes Joslin has gone through in the past ten years of life, and how she wound up in this little coastal town, alone.
"I finally got to the place where I accepted my body. My back doesn't accept it, however. I've had chronic back problems for years, and bending over painting and dyeing hasn't helped that. When you get older, you realize you have to take better care of your body. It happened for me when I turned fifty. There was a dramatic shift in how I look and feel. I'm trying to reach that in-between place where you trust yourself and learn to eat healthy things. That's a tough one. You're never taught to trust yourself, to believe in what you're doing.
"Now, I'm at peace with myself and my surroundings. I'm going to set up a gallery in my studio, a place to display my paintings and clothing. I can put a sign down on Highway One, saying Joslin Fine Art Designs, and be able to sell everything I do from there. Everyone come on up and see me in Gualala!"
Some of Joslin's best work consists of enormous, water-color flowers and abstract silk kimonos. They reveal her light, nature-loving side -- instinctive for a follower of The Great Earth Mother. But the decision to paint flowers wasn't an easy one to make.
"For years, I wondered what I should paint. Flowers are something I really love but I thought they were too corny, and everybody did it. Then I just said, 'screw it', that's what I want to do, and I can do it differently. Even when I was playing around and painting on newsprint for the practice, I discovered it was painful to me to do something that I didn't feel was perfect. It's only been in the last four years that I've been able to do all this stuff -- the flowers, the silk-painting and the abstracts."
How does an artist like Joslin, who works in so many strikingly different styles and media, get started? She recalls that it has been an ongoing process, but before she could emerge as a full-blown artist, there were certain aspects of her life that had to be `pruned', much as she prunes the flowers in her garden.
"I started sewing my daughter's clothes when she was a baby. But as an artist, the last ten years are when I started `coming out'. Around that time I stopped making men my projects, and started concentrating on `self as project' -- so much energy had gone into getting relationships together and trying to make them work; as soon as I spent some time by myself, the artist in me came out. I had a few classes at the College of Marin, and I have a library full of books and techniques -- I first learned how to do the silk painting at Club Med. Then I decided to figure out how to use the silk painting as an artistic technique; I have a massive curiosity about how to make things work and conform them to my needs."
It's the studio that comes as an amazing contrast to the rest of the house. An artist's studio must be messy simply because the nature of the work is abandoned. That I expected -- the painting in the corner of the room is what really took me aback. It is nearly life-sized, oils on canvas in dark, almost distressing shades. Entitled The Truth, it portrays a crucified woman -- she is naked, and blood is running down her body. She is young, and beautiful, and looking up into the sky, as if she can't believe this is actually happening to her. Was this painting really done by the same woman who loves flowers and bright, vibrant silk kimonos? Who designs pieces so light and delightful they could lift your mood just by viewing them?
"I had an idea for a woman on the cross, and I thought, `I'll bet a million people have already thought of that, and already painted it', but I had to do it anyway. I painted her with the flames coming up around her, and the earth behind her. What it means to me is that she is saying, `My people, why hast thou forsaken me?' Because we have forsaken the Mother, the woman, the female, and that's why the rape of the earth has taken place. In fact, the earth cannot be saved until man recognizes the rape that was caused by the reduction of the feminine, the earth -- Gaya."
Visit Joslin online at: www.joslindesign.com or write her an e-mail message at: joslin@mcn.org
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