Celebrating arts and culture in our community
Featured in The Springfield Beacon (October 24, 2007)
Janelle McMahon: Gemini sensibilities lend intrigue
By Austin Berger
For the Beacon
“Faces are interesting,” says Janelle McMahon (pronounced Mack-Mahan). “You can tell a lot from them. Good or bad vibes…and they come in all shapes.”Her love of faces is evident right past the threshold of the door; masks from all over the world adorn their walls. It may be due in fact that she has two faces herself, in the astrological sense. She’s a Gemini.
The astrological sign of the twins, Janelle's Gemini sensibilities may also contribute to her love of the number two, for many things come in pairs at the McMahon house. Two Hemingway Estate cats (as distinguished by their number of toes), two Porsches, two spindles, two magazine articles of her work in the magazine for the National Knitters guild (you heard right, knitters have a guild.); as well as a two-step stairway that leads to her studio. “Two steps up. Two steps down,” she jokes when talking about her commute from her studio to her kiln, which is in the garage.
Her Gemini sensibilities may also lend intrigue towards the dichotomous characteristics of her favorite medium -- glass: a medium to which the 55-year-old Springfield native has been able to fashion into something so straightforward as beads and plates, or to the intricacy of knitted fabric.
Inspiration to begin: “It was a slow grow,” says McMahon when asked about her immersion into the art world. She’s tried her hand at many things, working in health institutions and running her own bookkeeping secretarial service, teaching, and being a mother. She picked up art again when her friend enticed her to come to a knitting class. “We were redoing the house, I had no job…it immediately clicked.” Although she can paint, knit, as well as sculpt, she found her true love in glass -- first in beads, saying that it has “ a warmth, yet a coldness” to it, not to mention it’s ability to catch energy reflected off of it’s surface.
Mentors: Some people would credit Picasso or Da Vinci, or some type of artists in their respective field. McMahon credits her troop leader. Before working with glass, Janelle was a knitter, something she attributes to her long stay in the Girl Scouts, and rightly attributes her longtime troop leader Dottie Venchura as an inspiration. Also, the lion to her twins, she also credits her husband and best friend Michael. And Leone Hanson, who Janelle ranked as a second mother in her life, was a person who would pull no punches about her opinion of what she did. “She was one of those people who’d tell me if I was screwing up…she was the kind of people you could call on.”
Art and the quality of life: Any random horoscope will describe a Gemini as a flighty type, whose dual personality leaves them prone to wandering, lacking a center. Whether this is true or not for people born in late May or early June is anyone’s guess. What is known is that Janelle became a moon of sorts to the art world, in that she found that it could be her center to revolve around. “I learned all different types of art. All different types of people, their reactions to art…it opened that world I didn’t have.”
Art serves as Janelle’s anchor, her center; something she acquired when her father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. “I was always running to the coast…I needed to feel and create. I needed to be able to have something work.” In this trying time she found her soul being fed through her glass work. After winning a blue ribbon for one of her earliest glass works, “it was something where I could say: “Okay, this works.”
Her legacy as an artist: If there is one thing that Janelle loves most, it would be her family. Most of her family still remains in around the Eugene-Springfield area. Sooner or later, she plans on giving everyone of her family members a piece of her work. “I want them to have something of mine. It’s part of who I am.” As for the rest of her work, which ranges from jewelry to sushi sets to vases, whoever they go to, she expects some wear and tear. “I make functional art. It’s usable. I want it used.”
You can find her glass works and jewelry for sale at the Emerald Art Center and at the New Zone Gallery in Eugene.
"The Flower" by Janelle McMahon
__________________________________________________________________________
About The Artist
Hometown: Springfield, Oregon
Media of choice: Glass
Favorite place to do art: Her downstairs studio (a.k.a. “the eclectic dive”)
Awards: Several prizes -- Mayor's Art Shows in Springfield and Eugene
Favorite subjects: None (penchant for masks however)
Hobbies: Porsche Club
Art Organizations: Emerald Art Center, Springfield Arts Commission, New Zone Artists Collective
__________________________________________________________________________
