After completing college Jane married and began teaching art at an elementary school in suburban Pittsburgh. While teaching she finished her master’s degree in art education.

Although she quit teaching full-time to stay at home and raise her two boys, she taught art and craft classes at the local community college and started her own small business. In her basement studio she poured molten wax into plaster molds made from her original clay figures. Her waxworks were either one-of-a-kind or small limited editions. Jane’s work was featured in several national magazines and she received recognition in many local newspapers.

As her children grew older, a teaching position became available at a local school district and Jane decided she could not pass up the opportunity to work with young people again. She accepted the position as high school art teacher. Her teaching assignments put her in the ceramics, jewelry, fiber, and sculpture studios. She also taught Advanced Placement Art. Jane has stated “A part of me feels alive when I work with young people and when I teach. And although teaching and stimulating other people’s creativeness takes a tremendous amount of energy it is also very rewarding.”

Jane’s life has been a balancing act between family and career and also between teaching and producing art. For Jane it has been a challenge to find the time to keep working in her own personal studio, after the demands of teaching such talented students. So again, after taking an early retirement from teaching, Jane is shifting gears and is going back to her own art work. Aware of her ability to work in a variety of mediums, she has selected her ongoing interest in fiber techniques.

In just a few short years Jane has exhibited her artwork locally, nationally and internationally. Her fiber art has been shown at the Andy Warhol Museum, the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art at Ligonier Valley, the Erie Museum of Art, the State Museum of Pennsylvania, the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts and the Carnegie Museum of Art. Her work has also been included in gallery exhibits in Kansas, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington. Internationally her fiber art has been displayed at the Parliament House in Sydney and in Brisbane and Orange, Australia.

Jane continues to enjoy creating her artwork and volunteering in the arts community. She serves on several Board of Directors and is the Northeast representative to the Surface Design Association.