Janie Schnurr is moving forward in her artistic journey by going backwards in time.
A former art teacher, Schnurr admires how her elementary age students approached art with a joyful heart, responding to elements of design like shape and color without constraints that adults are often all-too-aware of.
"It was like free-form, and it was spirited, and it was naive in a way, but it was also innate," Schnurr says. "Whatever [the children] had inside of them came out, and it was just the most beautiful thing."
That's the vibe Schnurr is channeling in her August exhibition at Barrister Winery titled "Collage Mix Up."
The monthlong show features more than 40 of what Schnurr calls collage paintings, synthesizing her varied approaches to artmaking and materials.
In some works, Schnurr alternates between painting and drawing, often on different types of paper. Some of her monoprints use leaves, Japanese ukiyo-e inks, and other materials. She'll often incorporate paper — colored paper, dress-pattern paper, photographic paper, or her own printed images — and even fabric into her work, painting layers of acrylic onto the surface and alternating between transparency and opacity until the piece "feels right."
In some pieces, Schnurr coats the finished artwork with a layer of wax, giving it a durable matte finish so that the artwork resembles a technique known as encaustic.
Much of the work Schnurr is showing at Barrister is a continuation of several series she exhibited in 2022, including with the River Ridge Association of Fine Arts, and at Kolva-Sullivan Gallery, the Northwest Museum of Arts and Culture, and the Art Spirit Gallery. Schnurr began the Jubilee series, for example, shortly after moving to Spokane from Northern California in 2020. The colorful abstract paintings on canvas and wood panel was her way of dealing with the pandemic.
"I needed to find something happy" amid all the chaos, she says.
The titles for the pieces in her Jubilee series are numeric, but Schnurr's other works have more revealing names. Jewel. Faith. Paisley. Eve.
"I normally name my artwork women's names because there's a feminine edge to my work," she says.
An ongoing series of portraits she showed at the MAC, for example, reminds of a female-focused version of the abstract paintings by Amadeo Modigliani, the early 20th century Italian modernist and contemporary of Pablo Picasso.
Schnurr often works on multiple series at once, allowing each to inform the other. When she travels, she always has a sketchbook and draws fantastical, Seussian images of kids that she watercolors using an outrageous color palette.
Her two-dimensional "Hat Ladies" series incorporates flat media from paper to fabric and narrates something about each subject via the "hat" above her head, as if they were imagining themselves in a different life. Three-dimensional "Hat Ladies" Schnurr created out of clay remind of contemporary ceramicist Viola Frey — whimsical yet also poignant.
Schnurr's broad interest in art media is an outgrowth of her undergraduate years at California State University, Sacramento, where she earned both her bachelor's and master's degrees in art.
"I describe myself as an artistic explorer," she says.
While still living in Northern California, Schnurr exhibited in both solo and group exhibitions, including at STUDIO Gallery in San Francisco, with which she's still affiliated. Schnurr also returned to college to earn the necessary credentials to teach, which she did until 2014.
Although Schnurr was the teacher, the kids taught her in return, notably to just let go and create.
That resonated with Schnurr, who only has to spend time in her studio with her young grandchild, or to reflect on how art impacted her as early as second grade, to reconnect with a sense of exuberance for art.
"I was doing a lot of drawings and occasional paintings — watercolors and stuff — since I was really little," Schnurr says.
Growing up in northeast Texas, she was fortunate to get art (and music) classes twice weekly.
Schnurr also had aesthetically minded parents. Her mother's fondness for wallpapered walls instilled in Schnurr an affinity for patterns. As a teenager, Schnurr spent two weeks traveling in Austria, Switzerland and Germany, which exposed her to work by Old Masters like Peter Paul Rubens and modernists like Jackson Pollock.
"And I was like, wow. I was pretty much blown away," Schnurr recalls. "And after that, I started going to galleries and museums."
Now, to get herself in that mindset of being simultaneously awed and able to intuitively respond to the materials in front of her, Schnurr says she quiets her mind and turns on music. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Bob Dylan, The Mamas & The Papas and other "oldies" from her youth. Orchestral music or jazz. Sometimes vintage country, like her grandmother's favorite, Hank Williams.
Music is important to Schnurr, whose first job was at a record store. She remembers attending an Elton John concert at age 13 (the Tumbleweed Connection tour) and seeing the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. Reading the lyrics on album covers tuned Schnurr into a different iteration of patterns: the rhythm of words.
Although it's not her mainstay, Schnurr also writes poetry, like The Jubilee, which she wrote after embarking on her Jubilee series of collage paintings. Included in the Barrister exhibition, it perfectly captures her joyful approach to art, noting: "I'm 6 years old / making collages of shapes / that wander about on a canvas or page. / It's magic, I say ..."
What's next for Schnurr? More time in the studio, of course, but beyond that, she's not sure. She likes to take one class or workshop a year.
"That tells me where I need to go next." ♦
"Collage Mix Up" • Aug. 4-29; opening reception Fri, Aug, 4 from 5-8 pm; open daily noon-6 pm (Sat until 7 pm) • Barrister Winery • 1213 W. Railroad Ave., Spokane • janschnurr.com
