Janis Provisor
"Ooonoo", 2016
Watercolor on paper
Unframed: 12 x 9 inches (30.5 x 22.9 cm)
Framed: 19 ¾ x 16 ½ x 1 ¾ inches (50.2 x 41.9 x 4.5 cm)
Courtesy of the Artist

Selected by Barbara Toll 

1989 AND 1993 were pivotal years for me.  In 1989, Kathan Brown, founder of Crown Point Press, invited me to go to China to make prints in the traditional Chinese woodblock style, and I had the trip of a lifetime.  In 1993, my husband, Brad Davis, and son, Alec Davis who was then 6 years old, and I, through contacts made in 1989, were able to spend a year in China and Hong Kong painting, exploring, living. Thus, began a new adventure of design, primarily in designing and co-founding a hand-knotted silk carpet company, Fort Street Studio, and also making jewelry as Janis Provisor Jewelry. All along, I continued to make art, both painting and making prints.  In the early 2000s, I took a hiatus from painting, beginning again in 2013, during a summer spent in Normandy. I’ve worked continually since then, in studios in Hong Kong, Italy, Brooklyn and now in Connecticut.  Painting now is my sole focus, which, rather than a look back, is my present and future.  This is a great time of life to making art!