“If not now, then when?” This is the very question Janet Strayer asked herself when she was considering taking the terrifying leap from a successful career as a psychology professor to become an artist.
The Wings of Imagination exhibit will be running Nov. 28, 2019–Jan. 5, 2020 at the Sydney and Gertrude Zack Gallery.
From appreciation to realizing a new path
For Janet Strayer, solitude is fondamental to inspiration. | Photo courtesy of Janet Strayer
Strayer was born in Germany but has lived a great deal of her life in the United States and Canada, while also exploring every opportunity to travel. She has always been an appreciator of art and has collected it from all over the world, especially street art.
Strayer has been a hobbyist painter since she was a child. Throughout her years in school she maintained this fascination with creativity and even finished her studies with a minor in art history.
After years of appreciating other people’s art, and making art for her own enjoyment, she decided to start creating artworks that could be shared with an audience. However, at the time of this realization she was also busy as a tenured professor at Simon Fraser University (SFU) and it quickly became difficult to balance her two worlds.
“I had a very satisfying career as an academic and psychological researcher,” says Strayer. “I still have strong interests in it, but as I matured into my career I had reached a place where I started yearning to do more art. I began spending all my free time taking classes and workshops and going to shows, and the more I did, the more I craved it.”
Taking the leap
After struggling to balance the love for her academic career and her creative passion for the arts, she eventually decided to explore this piece of herself more thoroughly. She wanted to be able to dedicate more than just her free time to art.
“With a very established career in one field, I took a great leap of faith into the art world,” Strayer recalls. “It was surprising and it was frightening. But I am adventurous and I thought, if not now, then when?”
Fast-forward nearly two decades and Strayer has had her work featured in multiple public gallery solo exhibitions, curated juried shows and private and public collections all over the world. Her latest works are currently being featured in an exhibition entitled Wings of Imagination. The pieces in this exhibit are themed around a fascination with flight, discovery and freedom, expressed through vivid colours and playful imagery.
“Flying is part of the human imagination and a human wish. The wish to be able to surpass barriers, to cross boundaries and to have freedom,” Strayer explains regarding the ideas behind her current exhibit.
She currently spends a great deal of her time on the quiet Southern Gulf Island of Saturna, where her working studio is located. The natural beauty and peace of the island plays a vital role in her ability to create and helps inspire her. Her work can also be seen at the PRISM gallery on the island in the summer months.
“I need solitude,” says Strayer. “Then I can listen for the inspiration. I often find it by looking around me, in nature, art history and world culture. At any particular time, inspiration could be some of these, all of these or just one of them. But I need solitude in order to hear the inspiration in any of those.”
For more information, please visit www.janetstrayer.com.
