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Artist Interview: WAV Artist Janet Lamb
Strolling along the streets of Ventura during one of the art walks, Janet Lamb happened upon a kiosk with wonderful brochures advertising a new living and working space. It was called the WAV (Working Artists Ventura) project and its goal to blend art, community, and environment--instantly she thought, "That is for me!"
Lamb grew up in Hollywood and never left her Southern California abode. Throughout her early years, art was always a dominant component of life--she never had enough paper to cover in her imaginative drawings portraying the workings of her inner mind. Lamb drew on any kind of surface from inside of her books to scrap paper in the trash, and today she continues on with this constant act of drawing in any situation she may find herself in.
She gained a formal training in both Fine Arts and Education at the University of Southern California which is where she began to develop her passion for portraits. The subtle movements of a person--especially facial features--excite Janet and convey a wealth of information to her. After receiving her education, Lamb continued her studies in art as well as learning how to live, interact, communicate and achieve comfort in her place in the world. She taught in LA city schools and worked as a private tutor. In 1982 Lamb began studying drawing more in depth and drew on both Philosophical and Religious reasoning.
During our meeting, Lamb demonstrated the process of her work by manifesting a symbolic "energy portrait" of myself in her sketchbook. She carefully and deliberately drew a series of emphatic, curved, straight and expressive lines—each representing an aspect of me. The lines adjacent to the left side of the drawing symbolize my reflections on life, the ones at the top illustrate my spiritual life, and finally the rest of the lines portray my actions. After she completed the piece, she titled it "Sofia-a guiding light to others. Love your family" and explained her thought processes behind each individual line.
Lamb explains the content of her work as "Not a form of therapy, but closer to physics". Her concept stems from quantum mechanics from India. She told me "You have the possibility to transform tension from something light to something tangled". Lamb went on to discuss the possibility of being either a particle--set in stone--of an electron or a wave--it is possible to change. She describes her drawings not as fact, but as possibilities. Her objective through her art is condensed into: "Enhancing life skills through fine art".
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