Local Artist

Jan Maria Chiappa - Clay, Textiles, Drawing, Painting & Mixed Media

A local artist working in her studio on Fish Rock Road, Jan Maria's background is in fine art. She is a painter and potter.

Jan Maria holds a BFA, her formal studies include time at the Chicago Art Institute and Rutgers University. She was co-founder and co-curator of the first women's art gallery on the West Coast, The First Majority, in Berkeley, California. She currently teaches an "Open Clay Studio" at her studio on Fish Rock Road.

Jan Maria's paintings are much influenced by the notion that painting is a kind of storytelling and so her works have a narrative quality. They are multi-media, acrylic on canvas. Her drawings are often pre-painting sketches, short stories if you will, that have developed a life of their own.

Jan Maria's clay work blurs that often highly contested line between fine and functional art. The coast and its unique shapes and textures have informed her work. She creates pieces for the garden and home.

Jan Maria's textile work includes batik which again tells stories. Her approach to batik is painterly. She uses organic cottons and silks, beeswax, and Inkodyes. She uses both tjanting and Japanese style Sumi brushes again walking that line between fine and functional, she creates fine art pieces for the wall and for the body. Using fine yarns from around the world, beads and fringes, Jan Maria uses her painter's eye to create one-of-a-kind scarves.

As you can see, her life is spent in the creation of art.

Contact Information: Jan Maria Chiappa 46278 Fish Rock Rd Gualala, CA 95445 Email: janmariachiappa@yahoo.com Phone: 707-884-3825

© copyright 2010 - all rights to the images are retained by the artist