Unlike many of the artists we cover, Janie Kinnane (b. 1989) never pursued an art career. Instead, it pursued her. One of 10 siblings growing up on a coastal farm in Rhode Island, Kinnane enjoyed creative projects but sought a future outdoors, which led her to launch both a surfing camp and a landscaping business with her sister.
Along the way, Kinnane’s family encouraged her art-making. “I slowly accepted that there was a reason I could draw, and that it was my responsibility to cultivate this gift God gave me,” she says, adding that she is inspired by the rugged beauty of her surroundings.
Initially, Kinnane worked primarily in graphite and watercolor, completing commissioned portraits of people and animals. Mainly working in watercolors and acrylics, she began carving wood blocks in 2018. Now she uses a variety of media and gravitates toward marine and agricultural subjects, finding the unique texture and hands-on approach of block printing to be ideal for celebrating the natural world.
One of Kinnane’s earliest prints is “Bumper” (2018 – featured at the top of this page), which came about when she got the opportunity to print with a traveling block printing workshop known as Big Ink. Daring to tackle their largest format (40 x 96 inches), she was inspired to depict a whale that her nephew later nicknamed “Bumper.”
“This 40H x 96W inch humpback whale print was among my first carvings,” she says. “I thoroughly enjoyed my experience being a part of a Big Ink event, discovering a love for this medium has formed the direction of style for my artistic career.”
“Starting two weeks before the deadline, I thought I had set myself up for failure, but I have a great support system of family and friends who encouraged me through the blisters and bruises that I got from carving,” Kinnane recalls. “On the big day, when the print was sent through the press, six people lined the perimeter to pull it out in unison. I fell in love with the process of printmaking and that satisfying moment of the first reveal.”
Having named her art business Charlie Lou after her maternal and paternal grandfathers, Kinnane now happily lives out her mission to “create art for the good” by producing works that highlight and support humanitarian, environmental, and community causes.
“This gives me a deeper purpose,” she says, adding that she is grateful for her renewed relationship with art. “I am humbled by my naive stubbornness; I have very much grown to love the thing I told myself I didn’t want.”
This article was originally published in Fine Art Connoisseur magazine (subscribe here).
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