HOJE NO DIVÃ... Janel Bragg | Watermedia artist, Artwork studious, Photographer [EDIÇÃO INTERNACIONAL]


JANEL BRAGG | Janel was born in June of 1977 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. She grew up in Washington State, Alaska, and went to a year of college at Marymount College of Fordham University in Tarrytown, New York, where she took a design class that taught her composition. 

She currently lives in Anacortes, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest. According to her, she has been fortunate enough to have taken many classes over the years. She has also been fortunate enough to have had many encouragers in her life, including her parents, who believed and still believe that artistic expression is highly valuable and worth pursuing. 

Janel is a Pacific Northwest watermedia artist inspired by the German Expressionists of the 20th century, and the writings of many artists working in all different types of media, including Barbara Nechis, Judy Betts, and Eric Weigardt. She also loves studying artworks in all mediums and learning from them. She paints subjects that are familiar and many times sentimental to her, including abstract figures of family, landscapes inspired by local towns and seascapes from her home in Northwest Washington State, her own still life situations, and wild and domestic animals. Working quickly and spontaneously from her own photography and imagination adds life and movement to her paintings. 

Her work has been shown in galleries in Washington State, New York and Pennsylvania, including being juried into the 76th Annual Open International Exhibition of the Northwest Watercolor Society.

On the Couch...

1: Janel, how is art part of your life?   

I was able to draw easily the first time I was taught in Middle School. After painting and drawing a good deal through high school, I moved to New York and attended an all-girls college, where I was majoring in English Literature and minoring in Studio Art. I was interning at Dorling Kindersley Publishing and going to school full time. I had transferred there as a junior. 

It was the end of that second semester of my junior year that I had a manic episode and was hospitalized for the first time. I was forced to move back home with my parents, in Washington State, and I was heavily medicated and non-functioning. My Dad desperately tried to bribe me to make art, because he knew what I was capable of, and he said he would pay me to paint. I had no energy and no will to do anything though. 

But over the next couple of years, I did begin to slowly experiment with my Mom's oil paints, and I reminded him of when he said he'd pay me to paint. He said, 'That offer isn't valid anymore'. I continued to paint nevertheless. I don't know if I thought I was any good, but I knew I loved the process of making it, and that is why I continued. 

During the early 2000s online Print on Demand sites like art.com were flourishing, and I became part of art.com's early POD program. I was selected to have several of my paintings on the main art.com site. I sold several prints my first year. I made about $3 a print. Over the next maybe 8 years I sold a couple hundred prints. It was during this time that I knew several artists in that same program, who were producing a tremendous amount of work, and also making a lot of sales. I was jealous, and there was competition, but it was a healthy competition.  

It was then that I started really challenging myself to produce more work, and work of a higher standard. I took some graduate level art classes, that were very intense, where I was painting and drawing many pieces a week, and after that was over I realized that it is possible to create art when I did not feel like it, did not have any inspiration, or any desire. It is just a matter of discipline. 

That art.com program came to an end, as did my classes. I was still putting my artwork on my main website, on artmajeur. An art collector, CEO and owner of a large company from New York City  saw one of my taxi paintings, contacted me, and bought it. My Dad died shortly after that, and I reached out to this man in desperation, a complete stranger, and, surprisingly,  he befriended me has given me advice and support when I have needed it for over 7 years now. 

He is the main reason I put out so much artwork in the last seven years. He won't take any credit for it though, he says it's all me. It's really been the kindest thing anyone has done for me, outside of family members. He is very stable and reliable. He might just send a few words, but it is so helpful and encouraging. I send pictures of all of my paintings to him as I make them. I send one to him, one to my Mom, then post them on my websites and social media. Probably my biggest success to date is having one of my paintings reproduced and put in the guestrooms of a boutique hotel in midtown Manhattan. So all this work is going towards something. 

2: Janel, what would you do that Fear prevents you from? 

I avoid a lot of things like crowds and groups of people, driving on large highways, but I don't think I am actually afraid of these things, I just know my limits and know what I can handle. I will tell you a fear I used to have that I overcame about 15 years ago. I was so timid, and so insecure, that I had trouble making eye contact with and speaking to grocery store clerks who were checking me out. It was terrifying for me. I challenged myself to begin to look and them and speak to them, and I was able to overcome that fear. I can now speak to them easily. I think getting older helps with those kinds of things, too. 

3: Janel, please describe one of your major inspirations in life. 

As far as inspiration for my artwork, that is easy - other artwork, and I mean great artwork, that is in museums and that is collected. I have many books and art catalogs and absolutely love looking at paintings and drawings. I don't really get what art means, and am not interested in the philosophy of it, I just like to look at it, then like to make my own. I really don't put a lot of thought into my paintings, I know what my subject matter is, many times I am painting from life or from one of my photographs I have taken, but it I am very spontaneous and am not thinking when I am doing it and am lost in time. Which is actually the nicest aspect of painting for me, is the fact that I lose time when I am doing it. 

4. Which work of art would you choose to represent yourself? Why?

I will pick my drawing, 'Thomas Taking a Bath' to represent me. I was feeling very bad about my life not too long ago. Then I noticed Thomas (my cat), and saw how happy he is, and how well-groomed he is, and a healthy weight, and how he doesn't even try to escape from my apartment. It just felt like a big accomplishment, that I have kept such a vulnerable, little, sweet animal alive and happy for eleven years. I think that is when we are our best, when we are caring for other things or people besides ourselves. 

5: What life experience do you look at with the most gratitude? 

All of the care giving my parents did for me when I was ill, especially in my 20s and 30s. 

6: Janel, what does intimacy mean to you? 

I am not good at developing or maintaining intimacy with human beings, in fact, I even had a counselor who thought I had autism. I don't think I do though, I think that is how bad I am at it though. I am starting to have some relationships of more substance for the first time in my life though, and it is because of my artwork. I am not totally sure what the dynamic of that is, but it is like my artwork is having a relationship with people apart from me. I don't have to do any talking,  I can just observe this relationship and experience people are having with my artwork and it makes me feel less lonely. 

7: Janel, what makes you cry?  

I didn't cry for about a decade because I was too numb and troubled. When my Dad died seven years ago that changed. I have cried almost every single day for the last seven years. I still cry everyday, it's not about my Dad anymore though, it's just about other things, maybe everything. I am not clinically depressed I don't think, it's just that I am very emotional. I laugh a lot too. If I had to pick ten years of not crying at all or ten years of crying every day, I will pick ten years of crying every day. I am letting life move me now. I am open to experiencing life now. 

8: Janel, what is your greatest personal achievement?  

Quitting smoking. I told my Dad when he was in a coma that I would quit smoking. I don't know if he could hear me or not. A little while after he died I thought, My God, what have I done. So pretty quickly I bought nicotine gum, which I ended up addicted to for three years. I inadvertently was chewing too much of it, and it made my cortisol go so high, that the blood vessels behind my eyes were leaking, causing retinopathy and causing my vision to become severely distorted. I had to have surgery on my right eye. Anyway, I also moved to a new apartment, where the cost was higher, and I simply could not afford to buy all that nicotine gum anymore, so I switched to sugar free mints. Just regular breath mints. So I did that for three years, then just very recently decided I didn't want to spend $15 a week on mints. So I just stopped.



9: Janel, how would a more perfect version of yourself be? 

I would be healthy and have more energy. 

10: Janel, please finish the sentence: All would be different if...

...I hadn't gotten sick in New York, I would have taken the job offer at the publishing company, and stayed there, like I had wanted to. But I never would have started painting had that happened, and I wouldn't have wanted it that way. 

Yellow Cow by Franz Marc
11: Janel, which work of art most influenced your life? 

The first time I visited New York I went to the Guggenheim Museum, and because it was under renovation, I just went into the gift shop. I saw a painting that made me so happy, it was 'Yellow Cow,' by Franz Marc. I bought a large print of it, which I would have on my wall through the end of high school, and throughout all my moves during my college years. So originally, I just loved the painting, everything about it. It is childlike really. When I got a lot older, I started reading about Marc and the other German Expressionists, and I not only loved their art, but I found their stories to be so moving and compelling, and I identified with them so much and loved their paintings so much, and looked at them so often, that my own paintings started looking similar to theirs. I have moved away a bit from that, but it just goes to show you whatever an artist is putting into their heads is going to come out on the canvas, whether we are conscious of it or not. 


12: Janel, how would you want to be remembered? 

I think I would just like to be remembered as kind and that I tried the best I could with what I was given. 

The session ends for today.
Thank you for your sharing, Janel. 

For more informations about the artist and her artwork, please check below:

+ Site: www.janelbragg.com 

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