Jane Balshaw is a 4th generation artist and idea maker. From her earliest creative enterprise at age 9 making herself sandals fashioned from cardboard, ribbon and walnut 1/2-shells [because they would make a clicking noise when walking like grown up shoes], she has been inventing and reimagining her world with her hands. As a renaissance-style Jill-of-all trades, she has expressed her ideas across many mediums and birthed business after business, selling them then moving on to capture yet another idea. Welcome to her world!
LIFE TIME BIOGRAPHY
Backyard restaurateur; age 8
Walnut shoe maker; age 9
Acorn-meal maker and chipmunk wrangler; age 10
Corn field philosophy writer; age 11
Seed harvester/natural jewelry maker; ages 11 – 24
Cloth, thread and yarn fashioner; ages 15 – present
Color science nerd; ages 25 – present
Assemblage and Recipe developer; age 30 – present
Art, Ideas and Food Blogger; age 50 – present
Very mixed-media artiste; age 2 – present
” Life is fun when you make it that way”.
Jane Balshaw
I have always been a curious person. I was the kid who asked “Why?”, at least in my head I did. I love figuring things out, understanding what goes with what and why the natural world around me functions the way it does. Part science and part intuition, my art is a reflection of all that thinking.
PROFESSIONAL CAREER
Maker – Jane Gorman jewelry designs and repairs 1972 – 1980
Artist/colorist – Jane Bakaleinikoff clothing color analyst and make-up artist for film, video and stage 1980 – 1990
Triadic Color Theory System© developer – 1985
Formulator/owner/esthetician – Dom Ivana Skincare and Make-up product line & Spa 1985 – 2002 SOLD
Formulator/owner/esthetician – Euchlora Skincare and Make-up product line & studio 2010-2020 SOLD
Quilt artist and painter 2000 through present
Chef , recipe developer – Walnut Shoe Kitchen food product line – 2023 – present
COLLECTIONS
- The Silvia Styles collection
- The Maureen Duffy collection
- The BJ Entwisle collection
- The Daniel and Denise Roberts collection
- The Emily Preston collection
- The Natalie Wolf collection
- The Charles and Judith Kupperman collection
- The League of NH Craftsmens permanent collection
INSTALLATIONS
- Hebrew Senior Life Center; Boston, MA
- Frisbie Memorial Hospital; Rochester, NH
- Sanborn, Head and Associates; Bedford, NH
- Ouellette & Associates; Bedford, NH
- Baker Newman Noyes; Manchester, NH
EXHIBITIONS
- NEST exhibit; Twiggs Gallery, Boscawen, NH 2023
- Art and the Garden studio exhibit, Canterbury, NH 2023
- Out of the Woods; Two Villages Art Society, Contoocook, NH 2022
- Art and the Garden; Canterbury, NH 2022
- New Hampshire Business Committee for the Arts; featured Gala artist; 2022
- Haven in Place; WREN Gallery Bethlehem, NH 2022
- Two Villages Art Society; 2020
- League of NH Craftsmen Art, Craft and Design; 2003 – 2020
- League of NH Craftsmen headquarters gallery 2003 – 2020
- Portsmouth Historical Society Discovery Center “New Hampshire Folk Art” 2019
- Eversource Corporation SOLO 2018
- Anderson-Soule gallery “The Language of Color” SOLO 2006
- New England Quilt Museum, Lowell, MA; NW Barrette Gallery, Portsmouth, NH; Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery, Keene, NH; The Brush Gallery, Lowell, MA; International Quilt Festival, Houston, TX – selected 2005 – 2008
- Auberge du Soleil; St Helena, CA. 2000
