The Crone

Just in time for Halloween, we’ve got a spooky artist profile with local yoga teacher and artist, Janina Church. “The Crone”, an 8” x 10” mixed-media/assemblage art piece, portrays a wise old lady dressed in black proudly showing off some of her witchiest forest wares while positioned in front of a spookily swollen full moon. She’s accompanied by some formidable fungi and ominous ravens. To top it off, the piece is affixed with a few found objects, such as a feather and some assorted foliage, to great affect.

Assemblage art is an visual art form or medium, similar to a collage, that consists of three-dimensional elements projecting out of or from the substrate. It’s a powerful form of storytelling that allows artists to include physical aspects, oftentimes found objects of some personal value, into their creations. While historically a more detail and precision oriented artist, in recent years Church has been increasingly drawn to this unique process, and now gets to teach it to others in small, intimate workshops she holds periodically at her home in Pleasure Point.

When I first laid my eyes on this piece, it evoked a feeling of incalculable prehistory, and that feeling that we have become far too removed from our more primal, earthy past than we care to admit. It made me yearn for a better understanding of just who it was who came before me in my family tree, and what secrets they may have brought with them into their graves.

Was that what Church had been going for? Only she knows the answer to that question. All I can do is recognize the way it made me feel, deep inside, and that’s how art should be. It should provide viewers with more questions than answers, and it’s this lack of clarity that frees up the best artists to take risks and create without worrying about failure. Let’s hear more about how Church conjures the magic to make a piece like this really sparkle.

Pieces like this are for me. They’re for processing life experiences, both what’s happening around me and within me. Everything I make is for me, and often it’s for sale (laughs). I’m just one of those people where everything has meaning. There’s always something in it that is part of me, of my processing, my expression of myself. I share and sell what I create because there’s other people who are oftentimes going through the same things or feelings who really resonate with what I create. That’s really just what all artists are doing, sharing a piece of their heart.

I don’t necessarily go into anything with an idea, I just stand there and it starts happening, channeling from some inner place.

The theme of this piece is personal evolution, stepping into a new phase in life, and everything that comes with that. In all our phases in life there is a falling apart of our old self and a coming together of the new self. Sometimes there’s this attachment to the life that you’ve outgrown so there’s constant getting used to this new life that you’re excited about. The witchy theme has been coming up a lot for me, just connecting with that old woman phase that I’m coming into at this point in my life. 

There’s a lot of wisdom in this phase, so I’m honoring that wisdom. Just like with anything in our society, there’s can be a lot of positivity and honoring of old women, but there’s also a lot of negativity too in our culture, with agism and all that. It’s definitely a battle to grow old, for men and women. I feel especially for women, it can be harder. Even the most confident of beings, we are still human, with all the insecurities that come with it. Finding that many people resonate with this fuels me to continue to create, to keep these positive discussions going.

With this work, I’m trying to inspire confidence. Confidence, softness, and fearlessness. There’s a lot of notes of things that may seem forbidding in this piece- dark forests, mushrooms, crows or ravens, even bones. Things that are often depicted as spooky or mysterious things. They are all these things, but they’re also very beautiful. That’s the fun balance of life I guess.

There’s a big movement of mixed media/assemblage art out there and I’ve always been a big fan of it. Even in my jewelry, there’s elements of assemblage to it, like when I was electroforming and coating leaves with copper, bringing interesting elements into my art. I just did a workshop in Scotland with Sharon Payne Bolton. I’ve followed her for awhile so when I saw that she was doing this workshop I was all over it. It was a really nourishing and relaxing experience.

Like someone like Sharon, I’m so fortunate to be in the position to inspire others to create, explore their artistic side, push their boundaries. And to be able to offer this gift to amateur artists, who aren’t creating their work for anyone other than themselves. We’re often wondering, “can I sell this?”, and not only does that put us under unnecessary pressure, but it also gets old, quick. It’s wonderful for those of us who get to sell our art, and live that life, but it’s also beautiful to make something that is completely for ourselves.

My workshops are not just about teaching people techniques but they’re almost like a healing circle combined with art. We’ll often start with some crystal bowl sound healing and meditation to open up and come into the present, then we’ll do a little movement to open up our creativity chakra, and then some journaling. Each event has a theme, so I just start breaking down how to incorporate that in with their theme, while allowing space for other creatives who already know where they’re going to forge ahead at their own pace. It’s such a beautiful process to see what people come up with

When I create this type of work on my own, or with a group in the role of a teacher, I include lots of elements, including painting, drawing, assemblage, inks, watercolor, and acrylic. Just a variety of stuff. The way I teach mixed media/assemblage classes are in layers. As we build layers on our canvas, we are actually peeling layers away from ourselves. It’s really fun. 

Underneath the layers, there are layers hidden to the viewer in the finished piece. We’ll start with the base, and I often call this, “tending the garden”, preparing the soil so the background will be whatever we want. In this case I used old sheet music with script. After, we’l come in and add some paint on top of that. Within that layer we’ll often scribble some blessings, or mantras, or some more collaging, more paint. Oftentimes we’ll finish up with ink or some more assemblage pieces.

It’s been really fun and freeing for me. Most of my paintings or drawings have been very detail-oriented with an emphasis on precision. This is not that way at all. It’s been so soothing. I do miss silversmithing and illustration, and I got to do that a little bit on the retreat, but this is just something else. It’s so soothing and loose. And messy. Life is always a little bit messy, and falling apart, and that’s why I’ve been really drawn this type of art lately. Sometimes you can’t really do anything more than realize that things are a mess, and in the case of this art form, it’s about working with the mess and putting things back together in a way that is beautiful and makes sense.

For this piece, I was listening to metal. I love metal. For this one, it was Ministry. Old Ministry. It has an industrial vibe to it, really bass and distortion heavy. I find that sound to be soothing. In a weird way it really reminds me of a deep resonant “Om” from a Tibetan monk. Growling almost. There’s something really earthy and grounding to that for me. Like a heavy weighted blanket (laughs). Old jazz is probably my other type of music to listen to while I’m creating. Just depends on how I’m feeling. Sometimes heavy things need to come to the surface with some heavy music.

The most challenging thing while working on a piece like this is reminding myself that I don’t need to sell what I’m creating. The best stuff, for me, comes when there isn’t that pressure surrounding it. That’s why I don’t do commissions generally, I find that the best stuff comes from the heart. The most enjoyable part is the play. It’s just playful and fun, like dancing. Not knowing where I’m going with it, just flowing in the moment is exciting.

This piece really expressed what I was feeling and what my heart wanted to say. Sometimes you go into something certain about what your intentions are, but as you work through it, you find it was something else entirely.

To keep up with Church, follow her Instagram page @janina.church.art

For more on her upcoming workshops, check out her Event Brite page!