Let me introduce myself: I'm Janet Davis, an artist and entrepreneur living and working on the North side of Bonavista Bay, on the island of Newfoundland in Eastern Canada. There are many challenges to running a business here in my small rural hometown, and there are many wonderful benefits too. This blog is where I share some of those challenges and triumphs, and share what it's like to live in this part of the world.
When Janet Davis, an artist and entrepreneur, bought the Job Kean property in Brookfield, Bonavista Bay, in 1995, she bought more than a neglected house and general store that sat vacant for 20 years… see the full story from last year’s MUN Gazette: Art form
This untitled piece was a part of my first solo exhibit back in 1998, teastory.
Each piece in the series is the size shape and image of a tea bag. The teacup fragments were collected from the floor of my Morris Street apartment’s tiny kitchen. Too precious to be thrown away, I tucked them away for an unknown purpose, until I imagined this piece.
It’s all about holding precious bits and fragments of the past, but going on with something new, beautiful, and cherished.
I found this image of Georgina Bishop’s class on my old desktop… I think this is 2018’s graduating class, and many of these young ones are now 17 & 18 year old visitors to the café on a pretty regular basis.
I love having school groups visit the studio- each group is different. Some are quiet, shy, not wanting to ask questions; others are rambunctious and full of excellent queries. I appreciate the teachers wanting to show these kids what is happening just three doors down from their school, Pearson Academy, and I feel really special when the kids come back on their own time, bringing their families with them, or just popping in to see what’s on the go. It really makes me feel like I have a role in this community, rather than just working in my studio by myself most of the time until the tourist season starts!
I wonder who will show up this spring?
Looking through some old photo CDs, I found a photo shoot by Brian Ricks of me working here at the studio in 2007. Funny to look at now, seeing all the changes in me, Duke, Fred & one of his school mates, the artwork on the walls, the supplies in the shelves, so many changes in 11 years! What do you see as the biggest changes in my studio?
Pisces
2007
9 x 12 inches
Etching on 250g cream Arches cotton paper
Shown at my 2007 solo exhibit, FISH, at the Craft Council Gallery. My husband and I are both Pisces. We’re shown here as two salt fish, tied together at the tails with a ribbon.
I don’t remember what year these images bring me back to, but I made these mini-print images of New York City, a place I’ve never been, at the request of a New Yorker who enjoyed my work enough to ask for some special pieces for her pop-up shops (before they were called that).
I was reminded of them by a recent trip to New York by a couple of close friends, and by a scarf I’ve been wearing again lately that was purchased for me by my mother while shopping in Times Square a few years ago.
Roasted Capelin
2014
Nine x 8 x 10 inches
Oil on canvases
Private collection
Shanawdithit’s Dancing Woman
2007
3.5 x 5.5 inches
Lino-cut printed with red ochre on birch bark, embroidered with sinew.
Made especially for the ARTefact exhibit at Devon House.
I’m Just Another Fish in the Sea
2007/08
7.5 x 22.5 inches
Lino-cut printed with watercolour on 250g white Arches cotton paper.
Inspired by a song written by my brother Trev Davis, of the same title.
Clifford’s Education Fund
2006
8 x 10 feet
Hooked mat. Various reused fabrics on burlap with local branches/twigs woven directly into the negative space in the burlap around the fish images.
Part of Traditions in Transition group exhibit shown at Grenfell College Gallery and at The Rooms Provincial Museum, as well as 2007’s FISH solo exhibit at the Craft Council Gallery.
The View from Norton's Cove 