A Survey of Jan Govaerts’ Work Across the Decades
Jan Govaerts: Through the Years, A Survey of Work, showcases the evolution of Govaerts’ artistic journey. It is a joyful exhibition, spanning decades. Through the Years explores the artist’s career from painting to sculpture, revealing a deep connection to nature, memory and transformation.
Govaerts, along with artist Sam Arno in 1996, founded The Loft Galleries, the 1913 building in San Pedro, now called Los Angeles Harbor Arts or LAHA. The two came to the Lofts with artists Muriel Oguin, Ann Marie Rawlinson and Bob Doughty. Govaerts said that it was really nice to see how interested the landlord was in the program they were starting at the Lofts — and he still is, she noted.
Govaerts began her painting career drawing inspiration from her childhood memories of the Nebraska prairie. Early works captured the vast landscape of her upbringing before transitioning into dream imagery.
Her painting, Reflections, depicts a pond in Manzanar, the Japanese internment camp in Owens Valley, California. A tree of undulating branches and gold leaves sits in a pond of glassy blue water. The saturated color and light emanating from this beautiful painting envelope the scene inviting closer exploration.
Braided River, a painting in three panels, is from a photograph Govaerts took when she visited Alaska. She explained the river channels through the land, and there are little islands in the middle of the river, which provide many different climates along the water body. The tributary exemplifies any braided river, such as the one that was flowing next to the Nebraska town she grew up in.
Braided River’s serene, aqua hues emit light from within the painting. A horizon scene places the viewer at the edge of a fertile riverbank. The river resembles a soft, pale seafoam green pillow where, through Govaerts’ skilled hand, the water’s depth is palpable in this meditative piece.
In a series of four paintings on display, Govaerts made discoveries both of an artistic and mythic nature.
“As I was finishing the day of painting, I would take the leftover paints from my palette and smear them onto another board,” Govaerts said. “Eventually, the board was filled with colors, and I started scraping through the layers … The images just revealed themselves and I brought the figures forward by pushing the background back. Then I would add from there to reveal figures.”
Govaerts said she got this idea from Muriel Olguin (1923-2017) whose method was to simply pour the paint onto the canvas and turn the canvas. The paintings in the series are titled: Dance; The Gaze; They Turn Away; and Hand of the Banshee. Govaerts explained that the Banshee helps you across the veil when you die. She said this painting symbolizes her youngest daughter when she died and is the first in this series.
These are tactile works that one could gaze upon extensively while still discovering new forms. A common factor throughout Govaerts’ paintings is the light that emanates from within them. She said because of the way she developed these works, they were a real adventure to paint.
“It actually turned into a little story,” Govaerts said.
This story was inspired by a book titled Websters’ First New Intergalactic Wickedary of the English Language by Mary Daly and Jane Caputi.
A Children’s Story for Grown Women
“She offers herself in all her beauty, they turn away. Finding her strength, she purposely walks toward her own future. She walks in the verdancy and lushness of Earth, drawing up her strength. Alone, she celebrates her connection with the sea, the ebb and flow of life, absorbing the power of the wave. She dances her own dance, sings her own song, celebrating the fire, energy and ecstasy of life. She opens to the powers of air: new dawn beginning. She soars with inspiration, dreaming of her flight with Fox Woman. Circling with her sisters, she increases her powers three times three. Recognizing her strength, in respect he makes his offering.”
The artist wrote to the authors of ‘Wickedary’ sharing her inspiration with them. She discussed how she struggled to name the paintings until their book sitting on her shelf “pulled her eyes” and “woven within were the words for her paintings.” She wrote that being pulled in by the book was a very magical experience which increased the mystery and wonder of making those paintings.
“First came the inner journey of discovering the imagery, then the fun and synchronicity of discovering their ‘tidals,’” she wrote.
In 1999, Govaerts shifted her focus to sculpture, working primarily with clay. Her sculptures explore the extraordinary within the ordinary, finding beauty in overlooked aspects of nature. Govaerts got into making her seed pods after a moment of awe.
“I was driving along and I saw a tree and it was dropping seed pods, so I stopped to look at this little seed pod that caught my attention. I looked at it and it was so intricate, so beautiful, something we don’t really even look at.”
Fascinated by its intricate form, texture and organic symmetry, she translated this inspiration into sculpted forms. These enlarged seed pods transcend their physical beauty, evoking presence and wonder. Her recent Stone series follows this pattern in her creations of cairns, or small pebbles as references for larger works.
While sculpting her Seed Pod Boats, Govaerts recalled that she wondered if Indigenous people saw the pods floating downstream and got the idea to make boats. Her Seed Pod Boats, which are 7 feet long, 20 inches wide and 18 inches deep, are made of paper clay (liquid clay) that has processed cellulose fibers (like paper pulp) added to it, and slip fabric on a wooden armature, so they are not fired. They did not take long to make — as big as they are, she noted, once she built the armature.
“Those are my favorite,” Govaerts said. “I [made] it one time in the studio and I had slip everywhere … It was worth it to do these pieces, but never again.”
Her Guardian Towers 1, 2 and 3, Govaerts said, remind her of the hoodoos, which are tall, slender rock spires formed by erosion, located in the Bryce Canyon area of Utah. She built her towers in sections that were only fired one time, and with no glaze, “and they last perfectly.”
Indeed, Govaerts’ calm ‘Guardians” epitomize the hoodoo’s statuesque, jagged and protruding terra rossa formations. She meticulously constructs her towers by layering 500 to 600 hand-formed clay coils, creating towering structures up to six feet tall.
Her inspiration for the ‘Guardians’ came after Govaerts enrolled in a ceramics class at Los Angeles Harbor College.
“I got started, but I really started doing it full time when I had a little vision of these [towers], she said. “I had an idea for them … and I think that bubbled up from the memories of the hoodoos.”
She began her Guardian Towers series in 2007 and has 21 towers in total.
Govaerts’ Wings is made of two pieces. This earth-colored sculpture resembles something one might see as part of an avatar’s anatomy in a sci-fi film, with its repeating stripe pattern within its biomorphic shape. At the same time, this extraordinary piece has a fossilized appearance.
“There are so many processes in making clay,” Govaerts said. “They all take different amounts of time. My pieces are single-fired with no glaze; they have different stains and underglazes. Sometimes I polish them. People see all kinds of things in the seed pod pieces from something that came out of the ocean to something from outer space.”
The most joyful piece in this retrospective Singing Bowls is just what it sounds like; a collection of small ceramic bowls, of all different colors, strung in rows and hung from the ceiling on a large frame. It’s a big mobile of sorts (you can actually, but carefully, walk within) which Govaerts gladly provided chopsticks to play the bowls.
A dedicated artist and educator, Govaerts earned her bachelor of arts in Studio Art in 1991. She served as president of Angels Gate Cultural Center and taught ceramics for many years. In 2018, she and her partners established Blue Water Clay, a full-service ceramics studio where she taught until her second retirement in 2023. Today, she continues to create in her studio.
Join two more events around this exhibition:
Artist reception from 2 to 5 p.m., April 19
Closing reception, from 2 to 5 p.m., May 10
Details: 310-547-3624; https://www.laharborarts.org
Venue: LA Harbor Arts, 401 S Mesa St., San Pedro