Kentucky.gov

On Saturday, Feb.13, Janice Harding Owens of Mt. Vernon will demonstrate folk art painting from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at the Kentucky Artisan Center at Berea.

As a native of Rockcastle County, Owens comes from a family of creative quilters and painters. In the l980’s she began painting the wood crafts that her husband Ron made. Eventually Owens began to paint on boards and in 1989 painted her first canvass with acrylics. Folk Art collector John Irvin saw Owens’s work and arranged for her to have her first exhibition of paintings at Central Bank in Lexington in 1991.  She has since had painting exhibitions all over the country including Washington, D. C., Connecticut and Wisconsin among others.

With children in her household, Owens chose to work with water based acrylic paints to avoid the smell of oil paints and to achieve a fast drying process. Often she bypasses sketching the painting first and goes right to the paint. She comments, “Sometimes I just go at it with the paint, by the time I sketch something in, I could have painted it!”

Her favorite subject is landscapes. While commissioned paintings require Owens to follow an actual image, her own landscapes might have a horse painted next to a building she saw in a magazine. She looks at photographs and other images as a reference point, and then juxtaposes them together in her own unique way.

Works by Janice Harding Owens are regularly 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 open daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and the café is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. The center currently features works by more than 650 artisans from 100 counties across the Commonwealth and a special exhibit “Kiln-Formed Glass by Kentucky Artisans.” 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 of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.