Thursday, January 9, 2014

getting to know jane wetzel

Jane Wetzel



Meet another one of the Roc Nicholas Rubber Stamp Design Team members, Jane Wetzel.  Jane lives in Ohio, in a small, rural town south of Cleveland.  She has been married 34 years and has four children ranging in age from 23 to 34.  She has two boys and two girls and one precious granddaughter.

Jane loves to paint, stamp, color, journal and make art.  She describes herself as always "being an arty person" and majored in art in school, but never really devoted the time to it because of the importance of taking care of her family.  She has spent most of her time raising her children and playing chauffeur since three of her kids played competitive sports, up to and through college. 

She loves being a volunteer at her church and eventually became an employee.  She is currently in her sixteenth year there and loves every minute of it.  Jane recently got a part-time job teaching art to elementary and middle school students.  She feels so blessed to be able to be with children and art.  She learns so much from them.

Jane thinks back how this all started. She fondly remembers doodling and creating things for as long as she can recall and even has memories of keeping a few very old rubber stamps in hopes of "one day" using them. But as fate would have it, Jane took a one-day class when her youngest child was in middle school.  That class led to a Stampin' Up party, which led to "art dates" with friends, and well, the rest is history.

Jane had a friend who lived close to her and when that woman started her own line of rubber stamps she asked Jane to help her with some of the day to day duties and stamp shows.  Jane was thrilled at the opportunity.  Together, they found the world of blogging and it was so exciting to be exploring new arenas.   As time went on, however, Jane noticed that even though she enjoyed being at all the stamp shows and having access to lots of supplies, she recognized that deep with in she yearned to express her own style.

One day Jane's husband surprised her with a gift of unending classes at the Cleveland Institute of Art.  Jane was truly ecstatic at the possibilities this was going to offer her.  She found more online classes and was able to tap in to some local mixed media classes.  She says, "I found people like Roc making mail art with stamps and so many other awesome stamped images."  Jane professes her love of Roc Nicholas Rubber Stamps because she is able to create cards,  scrapbooking layouts, and art journal pages with them.  She finds such fun in the versatility that my stamps offer to her creative process.

She quit all her former design teams and stayed with only one company.  That company was Stampotique.  Jane felt like this company fit her like a glove.  She got to combine stamping and mixed media with all the unique images they had to offer.  She even had the blessing of being published. 

Jane has transformed one of the bedrooms in her house to an art studio.  She loves that she can access her own personal space to craft and create any time of the day.  She loves that she has a special place where she can get up,  leave what she is working and come back to it a later time and pick up right where she left off.

Jane finds inspiration all over.  She admits that while internet is an easy access to inspiration, you can appreciate beauty by just looking around.  She says there is beauty everywhere.  Jane also finds inspiration in her family.  They are always joking and love to find humor in things.  Jane admits that  her husband is always quick to give her funny quotes when he looks at her art work. 

Jane's word for 2014 is "improve".   She wants to keep improving her knowledge of art.  I think she is well on her way to achieving that goal.

4 comments:

  1. can't wait to get to know jane even more!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. thanks for the awesome opportunity to work with fabulous roc images :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. nice to get to know you a little better, Jane

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jane is my friend. She is one fun and talented lady....But I think you already know that Roc.

    ReplyDelete