Jan Hurd
When I was a kid all I wanted to do was read and draw
and run around in the woods with my dog.
Funny thing is that at the opposite end of my life that is exactly what
I am doing. After college and graduate school in library science, it became
clear to me that really, I wanted to be an artist, so I began working in clay.
For thirty five or so years I enjoyed all the aspects of making and selling
three-dimensional work until the physical costs of smoky firings got to be too
much. I sold all my equipment and began to draw again, beginning with botanical
illustration classes at the UW Center for Urban Horticulture. In the last
couple of years I've branched out from plants into humans and other animals,
and am exploring all kinds of techniques for getting the images onto paper,
including watercolor, graphite, colored pencil, and pastel. Through all this
work nature has been my subject. From wall-hangings of ravens and salmon to
smoke-fired grizzly bears to paintings of stems, seeds, and flowers, and now
the ravens return to my work along with sheep, chickens, and chipmunks.
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