Jan Dorer - A Lifetime in Paint

"It has bothered
me all my life
that I do not
paint like
everybody else."
-Henri Matisse

This doesn't seem to trouble Jan Dorer much.

There was actually a point in Jan Dorer's career when an article referred to her as "Mrs. Gil Dorer, housewife painter." This label is especially amusing to consider while admiring any one of her paintings. The power, sophistication and beauty of Jan's pieces are compelling. Her work has the broad appeal of a truly developed painter, and seems to transcend distinctions between serious art and art that is simply beautiful or compelling on its own.

Although Jan's current work is clearly abstract in nature, saying this doesn't begin to convey anything about its spirit. The paintings have a maturity that suggests the influence of some school of thought or technique, but one is hard pressed to decide what school that might be. Jan is a well-developed force in and of herself, painting with solid skills, and from the heart.

Somewhere between her visible success and the moniker "housewife painter" is an obvious question about what it was like for a woman painting during a period that witnessed such an evolution of women's rights in America. Jan denies any effect on her artwork.
"This kind of genderizing wasn't really that important to me," Jan said. "I would have been painting all the same, and painting whatever I felt like painting."

The engaging nature of her work is echoed in the experience of spending time with Jan and her husband, Gil. The two are a seamless team. It's clear in their every word and gesture that life and art are a continuum for them; that her art is partly made possible by their mutual love and support, which makes the art available to those who love it, whose purchases and support make the art possible, and so on.

Many artists - either out of introversion or what they assume is a professional demeanor - keep a safe distance from their work. Not so with Jan, who will shift comfortably between talking about historic facts, inspiration, technique, or the joy of connecting with those who acquire her art, all without missing a beat.

"We feel that when people buy one of my pieces, they're really taking a piece of us with them," Jan said.

The warmth and joy that the Dorers exude is genuine and uplifting, and very apparent to those who take the time to converse and connect with them. Their amazing energy has created a devoted following who shamelessly refer to themselves as the Dorer groupies. One of them has acquired around fifty of her paintings.

Although Jan will gladly talk about her work in terms of technique, methods, and materials, she seems to be just as happy letting the work speak for itself. The thread of what she says about her career will often shift slowly to talking about other, more personal things. She may reflect on the importance of family and the support her husband Gil and her children provided early on that enabled them to get to where they are today.

In the early days, Jan pulled off the impressive feat of raising two children, Cyndy and Bob, while fostering a productive painting career, She'd spend countless hours painting in her studio and working the fair circuits. It was in these early days that the couple developed their simple but effective operations model: Jan provides the artistic genius, and Gil provides the business mind and wry humor. In the early years, Gil kept his day job as a school counselor while Jan left her job teaching kindergarten to juggle child-rearing and painting. Gil and the children would also stretch canvasses and staff the booths to help out. By 1972, they had two pre-teens, a little money in the bank, and a fair-sized mortgage to think about. This was the year they took the plunge; Gil left his day job to become Dorer Studios first employee.

"Looking back, we sure had guts," said Gil. "We were short on funds but long on a zest for life," Jan added.

Well, they had guts alright, and apparently a lot of fortitude. They moved to Georgia in 1973 so they could exhibit in winter fairs in the south and summer fairs in the north. During this period, they managed to raise two kids and put them through college on a tight budget.

While they speak fondly of the struggles of those days, they were delighted to move back to the Ann Arbor area in 1994 where, according to Gil, they could be around the kind of fun, open-minded, creative folks they fancy. This was a fortuitous decision for all the folks here in Michigan, be they lovers of art or of genuinely kind people.

Art Showcase Magazine
Summer 2005
Ian Gray