Bird Rock artist pieces together mosaics for community
Mar 3, 2010
Jane Wheeler works on a Bird Rock banner in tile.
By Carolyn Grace Matteo
Contributor
Adorning the walls of the Bird Rock Coffee Roasters restroom is a beautiful mosaic mirror, splashed with hues of greens and blues that slap a breath of life into the otherwise barren cavern. A business card nearby reveals the mirror was created by area artist Jane Wheeler.
"My life is very much a mosaic ... a combination of all sorts of different colors and textures ... a divine inspiration," said Wheeler, who is founder of the Bird Rock Artist's Guild.
While it's obvious Wheeler enjoys art for art's sake, there lies within her work a deeper significance secretly boiling beneath its aesthetic appeal. It is this simple "something" that reaches out, pulls one in and whispers, "Don't pass me by, there is more." Once this intangible something has lit the observer's curiosity, the eyes scan the surface of her works and soon find hidden words, messages and other trinkets embedded within the design. These pop into vision almost magically, as if they weren't there just a moment ago.
This element is especially evident in the three public benches Wheeler designed for the Bird Rock community. The benches contain inspirational quotes and symbols woven throughout a colorful potpourri of Italian mille fleur tiles, glass beads, sea glass, vitreous glass, Mexican beach pebbles, handmade ceramic tiles, metal letters, Brazilian agates and mirror tiles. Each bench contains more than 1,000 pieces and required approximately 100 hours of labor.
Additionally, it was Wheeler who painted the wall in front of Muirlands Middle School. She also participated in several fundraising art projects at Bird Rock Elementary School.
Art's magic crept into Wheeler's life at a young age. She grew up in Milwaukee, the second in a family of four girls. Her father was a banker, her mother a nurse, who each evening at bedtime played the piano for the family.
Wheeler recalls retreating to her basement as a teenager, immersing herself in creative projects such as sewing, silk screening and painting murals on the basement walls. No one graded those basement walls, but in a high school art class, a teacher gave her an unwelcomed "C." Then and there, Wheeler resolved never to take another graded art class.
"You could say I'm more of a self-taught artist," she said, acknowledging as an exception teacher Elaine Harvey.
"Elaine taught me that everything is an under-painting. If you make a mistake, you just paint over it, and this applies to everything in life. You can always re-create yourself, re-create your life."
Wheeler said she derives inspiration from Matisse's sense of color and paper-cut works, as well as from living and traveling abroad. She has been to Turkey, Greece, Russia, Germany, Costa Rica and Colombia, and has taken up residences in England and France.
She said she is sensitive to the "starving artist syndrome," and is grateful to her husband, Doug, for providing her with a safe and supportive environment in which to unleash her creativity and raise the couple's two children.
"I don't have to work anymore, so I can volunteer my time to the community and do my art," she said.
Although the La Jolla Light does not have any obligation to monitor this board, the La Jolla Light reserves the right at all times to check this board and to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to the La Jolla Light in our sole discretion and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. The La Jolla Light also reserves the right to permanently block any user who violates these terms and conditions. All threats to systems or site infrastructure shall be assumed genuine in nature and will be reported to the appropriate law enforcement authorities. Submission of any comments will be considered permission to use online or in print.
