Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea
Horse Jewelry Artisan Janet Bailey Burch to Demonstrate at Kentucky Artisan Center

On Friday, August 1, Janet Bailey Burch of Crestwood, KY will demonstrate how she creates horse themed jewelry, home and garden accessories from wood from 10:30 – 3:30 at the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea.

Janet Bailey Burch lives on a farm and has been working in wood since childhood. She received a Bachelor of Industrial Design degree from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. She has also spent many years working with horses – teaching, training, showing and judging horses. These years working with horses has given Janet a thorough knowledge and understanding of the structure of the horse.

Janet begins by drawing the horses that surround her at her horse farm. She traces her drawings onto birch plywood, cuts out each horse image using a scroll saw and them carves and contours the surfaces and hand paints them. Her line of jewelry is painted with colorful designs and patterns and Janet adds details with a paint pen or permanent marker. Her line of “Punk Ponies” is made into jewelry pins as well as mirror frames and wall mounted pegged coat hooks and racks.

Janet has recently worked at achieving horses with more three dimensional visual results as she sculpts laminated layers of wood into horse forms that push out into space creating great depth and detail. She has sculpted two of these works from Padauk wood and they are included in the Kentucky Artisan Center’s current gallery exhibition “Creatures & Characters: Works by Kentucky Woodcarvers.”

Works by Janet Bailey Burch can regularly be found at the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea, located at 975 Walnut Meadow Road, just off Interstate 75 at exit 77 (Berea). The Center’s exhibits, shopping, and travel information areas are all open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and the café from 8 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. Admission is free. The Center currently features works by more than 650 artisans from 100 counties across the Commonwealth. For more information call 859-985-5448 or visit the Center’s web site at www.kentuckyartisancenter.ky.gov  

The Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea is an agency in the Kentucky Tourism, Arts & Heritage Cabinet.