‘Stories in Colors’ is the Rancho Bernardo Library’s latest art exhibition

Featuring collage, watercolor and mixed media, “Stories in Color” is the Rancho Bernardo Library’s latest art exhibition.

The 18 pieces that focus primarily on women were created by Janet Perkin, who has lived in the Rancho Bernardo/Poway area for three decades.

A longtime art lover, Perkin only began painting after retiring 20 years ago from the insurance brokerage she and her husband, Paul, owned.

“Our kids grew up and I decided to go back to what I really wanted to do when I was in my 20s,” she said. “I wanted to do art, but I didn’t because how could I make a living painting? But in the last 20 years, a whole new world has opened up to me.”

She started with watercolor, experimented with oil and acrylic, but found mixed media to be her preference. Perkin said she primarily uses watercolor or gouache, a type of watercolor that can be very bright and vivid when applied in layers.

“It’s becoming the new popular medium,” she said of gouache. “It dries quickly and I can paint it to darken it.”

“I mix painting with collage and that’s what people seem to really like.”

His artwork often incorporates scraps of paper, sand, glass, crayons, wax and “anything that seems to match what I’m trying to do.”

She learned her craft by attending countless art workshops locally and in places like Italy, Mexico, and Arizona.

“I attended workshops in many different places with great artists who inspired me to learn and develop my own techniques,” said Perkin. “(With mixed media) I’m using my imagination, not just copying a scene or photograph of something. I like my art to tell a story, to have a message. … Hopefully there will be different messages for different people.”

Perkin is sometimes surprised by what people say they see in her artwork, and said she finds it “exciting” to know how her abstract works resonate with other people.

“”I do abstract painting with a message,” she said.

Sometimes his paintings are inspired by books. The psychological thriller “In a Dark, Dark Wood” by Ruth Ware inspired Perkin to paint “Lost in the Woods”, which is part of her exhibition at the RB Library. Her colorful, tropical “Garden Cafe” was inspired by the book “The Cafe by the Sea,” she said.

“Evening Glow,” reminiscent of a lake and forest, was an accidental abstract, she said. Not satisfied with what she originally painted, Perkin said she tried wiping off the acrylic paint with paper towels. However, she found the resulting paint pattern appealing, saying it transformed the work of art.

“Lindisfarne” includes several arches she saw while visiting a monastery on an island off the north coast of England.

“I visited it many years ago and it was so remarkable,” Perkin said. “It was one of the first places where monks settled and today it is in ruins. I took a lot of great photos.”

Parts of his photos are incorporated into the work, making it a multimedia piece.

Displayed alongside “Lindisfarne” is “Barista”, another multimedia artwork, this time inspired by Starbucks. Elements of the coffee chain’s famous logo can be seen, along with texts from some of its labels, pieces of broken glass and other texture elements.

The watercolor “Mama Pig” was created during the pandemic as part of a challenge that Perkin launched to family and friends as a way to bring them together during isolation.

“I was feeling depressed and isolated, so I created the art challenge of painting the same theme every month,” she said. This challenge was to paint the image of an animal and for fun she chose to paint a mother pig with piglets because animals are not something typical of her work.

When it was displayed at an art gallery, Perkin said she was surprised that the colorful painting caught so many people’s attention.

His love of Mexican art, especially that related to Dia de los Muertos, inspired some of his colorful works. One includes three-dimensional components such as a skull and a parrot among the images.

Born and raised in England, Perkin said she studied chemistry at the University of Manchester, worked as a scientist doing research and also taught chemistry. Shortly after marrying her husband in 1965, the couple moved to South Africa to work with her husband.

“Our two years there influenced some of my paintings,” Perkin said.

They returned to England, where their three children were born, but in 1985 they moved to Houston due to her husband’s desire to live in the United States.

“My husband was turning 40, he had always admired the US and wanted to work for himself,” she said.

But life in Houston wasn’t what the couple imagined it would be, she said, so after two years, in 1987, they moved to Scripps Ranch. In the early 1990s, they moved to Rancho Bernardo so their children could attend Poway Unified schools. Now the couple lives in Poway.

Since becoming an artist, Perkin has joined several arts organizations, including the North County Fine Arts Society, of which he was president 10 years ago. She is also part of the Fallbrook Art Association and has exhibited her work at Escondido Municipal Gallery, Fallbrook Art Center, and Front Porch Gallery in Carlsbad.

The National Collage Society has featured his work several times in its annual calendar. Perkin said he won several awards at the San Diego County Fair. All of his artwork is for sale. For details, visit janetperkinart.com.

“Stories in Color” can be viewed for free in the second-floor hallway of the Rancho Bernardo Library, 17110 Bernardo Center Drive, whenever the library is open. The exhibition will run until the end of December.