Title: Color Is My Muse

Opening: July 4, 2025 at 5 pm

“Color is my Muse” will show a collection of oil paintings focused on color in still life and nature.

Artist Statement:

I’ve been making art for as long as I can remember, first as a dancer and later as a weaver. I always painted with watercolors, self-taught. Finally, 12 short years ago I found River Gallery School and after a tentative foray into sequencing with Lydia Thomson, I fell in love with oil paints. Being at River Gallery surrounded by art making has been so stimulating as I continue to learn from my fellow painters and teachers there.

I’ve taught myself to draw through painting and am a colorist first and foremost. Color is my muse and I use it as an expression of my inner life as well as what my eyes see. I like being in a not knowing position, Fresh eyes every day with a moment of excitement as I start to put down paint. How lucky am I? It’s the dance I love now.

Bio

Jan Levine was born in Cincinnati Ohio and has lived in Western Massachusetts since she graduated high school. She attended University of Massachusetts and has a BA and an MEd From there in early childhood educatio0n and counseling. She is a co-founder of Everywomens’ Center at UMass and helped write the Womens’ Studies department there.

Jan got her MSW at Smith School for Social Work and subsequently taught there for 18 years. She worked at several agencies and until recently had a private practice of psychotherapy and consultation.

Art has been a lifelong fascination, as a child, reading biographies of artists and visiting galleries and museums with her mother. Jan always painted with watercolors and was a weaver earlier in her life. This time in her life finds her committed to oil painting as often as possible and diverging at times to pastels and collage. She is joyfully making art as her full-time vocation.