Jan Dove

Born to peripatetic military parents, Jan Dove has never settled for long in any one physical place. With an MFA in printmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago she has helped people as an artist/teacher/arts administrator in California State prisons.

Jan has been honored with Residencies at Blue Mountain Center in New York, Ucross in Wyoming, Hypatia-in-the-Woods in Shelton, WA and Bloedel Reserve in Bainbridge Island, WA. She used to think that these residencies were rewards for doing good through her art. Until one day she realized that they really were recognitions simply for her act of living her life as an artist. Such recognition is a rarity in our culture and she is deeply thankful!

In later years her work as a teacher in the Multimedia Arts Department of Berkeley City College added the digital dimension to her interest in traditional print media. It also brought her back to the form of the Artist Book to which she had been introduced during her art school days in Chicago.

Her art influences have been Kathe Kollwitz, Artemesia Gentileschi, and Anonymous from the cave wall tradition.

Having settled on the northern Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, Jan has been fascinated by the color of its light, and by the beauty of this land where the mountains meet the sea. But her work is infused with thoughts about what workaday folk can build to resist the drumbeats of xenophobia, authoritarianism and eco disaster.