Artist Janice Gay Maker received her BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art in 1981,  Her passion lies in painting the landscape in oils or pastels. Paintings that are infused with light and rich in color and texture, characteristics for which she is well known. Janice is often outside, at work - composing paintings from life.

“I love working on location and having the opportunity to be in the environment which I am striving to compose. To feel the breeze, see the sun and inhale the aroma of the day are what give appeal to want to work on site. My landscapes are about  stopping time & preserve that cherished moment that we might escape from our realities.”

Much of the time she can be found working in downtown Norfolk, Virginia where Janice has maintained studio since 1992.
When not painting in her studio or en plein air, Janice is a skilled and compassionate teacher of oil painting and oil pastel & soft pastel. She has led classes & workshops in several of this area’s art centers, privately in her studio and on location, since 1994. She has won many juried art show awards and her work is included in numerous collections across the US, Great Britain, Europe and Japan.

 As a youth having the opportunity to make frequent visits to the prestigious museums of the Boston area where I grew up, influenced my interests in art. In the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Gardner Museum & the Fogg Art Museum I always found myself drawn to painters of the land scape. Like these artists, I am inspired by nature and the ever-changing quality of light which progresses with the seasons and the hours of the day. I use the infinite colors of my palette to convey my love of nature and its emotional effects on my soul.

“There is a spirit in nature that touches our senses. It makes us feel whole...it makes us feel satisfied. The dawn and the dusk hours are particularly intriguing to me as this time presents its veil of mystery. Its colors like our impressions are continually changing from moment to moment. The intent of my work is to discover the soul of the landscape. Here there is a past, present and future.”