Jan Freeman Long was born in southern California where she lived for the first half of her childhood. At age ten her family moved to a small coastal town in southern Oregon. Their new home included a large front yard with an ocean view and a trail to the beach, and this was the beginning of Jan’s discovery and love of nature. She spent hours walking along beaches, alongside or swimming in local rivers, and hiking through forests.
It was during these years she began to comprehend that life as it unfolds in the natural world resides solely in the moment, unfettered by the human intervention of measured time. She was soon awed by the ageless and ever-changing cycles continuing year after year. Witnessing this seamless interdependence was her foray into the paradox of being mortal within a web of life that exists in an enduring, timeless way.
While growing up Jan was also fascinated by the night skies as well as aerial photographs of the remains of indigenous architecture around the world. They have remained an ongoing obsession. Since her preschool days she has loved to draw and paint.
Years later she realized how the imprint of her earlier years was the defining influence of her obsessive interest in art. While studying Painting at the California College of the Arts (CCA) in the mid-1990s, she was quickly attracted to working with abstraction. It offered her an open-ended vocabulary with which to look beyond the obvious, thus entering a sense of the unknown. It was her way into exploring the internal landscapes of being human while residing in both measured time and what is timeless. Her visual form of poetic expression began to develop.
Jan’s final semester at CCA took place in Florence, Italy at Studio Art Centers International. Along with her studies she took many side trips throughout northern Italy and as far south as Rome. Early in her stay a new fascination emerged: the beauty and endurance of countless ancient buildings and ruins and how they continue to age. She shot over 60 rolls of film of peeling surfaces, doorways, windows, rooflines, and piazzas. This immersive experience continues to inform her work now and then. In 1996 she earned a BFA in Painting – with Distinction – and has since maintained a dedicated studio practice.
During studio time Jan is most at home when she is in oceanic time and following her intuition is key to her process. She also relies on the wisdom she continues to glean from nature’s ongoing patterns and cycles. From this state of mind she embarks on her explorations of what is timeless, enigmatic, universal, and enduring.
