Meet Michael Janis

Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
After a 20-year career as an architect in the United States and Australia, I returned to the US with a focus on working with glass. Since 2003, I have worked in glass and have taught workshops on my glass art techniques around the world. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2012, I went to England’s University of Sunderland and taught at the UK’s National Glass Centre where I became an Artist-in-Residence at the Institute for International Research in Glass (IIRG).

I am honored that I have received awards for my glass sculpture including the Florida Art Glass Alliance’s Emerging Artist Award 2009, California’s 2010 Saxe Fellowship and was named a “Rising Star” at New Jersey’s Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center in 2011. The James Renwick Alliance named me the Distinguished Glass Artist for 2014 and had me present my work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2014. In 2016, I was awarded the 31st Annual Mayor’s Arts Award for “Excellence in the Arts.”

I recently completed two public art sculptures at the West Palm Beach International Airport, one for the Tourism Development Council (TDC) and for the Palm Beach Sheriff Office (PBSO).

Please tell us about your art.
Inspired by ways we transform ourselves; I work at creating creates glass pieces that have both visual and spatial depth. By layering and fusing sheets of glass with overlapping images, I strive for an interactive commentary using simple forms with intricate glass powder drawings. These works are a continuation of my frit powder drawings that I have been working on for some time now. Using crushed glass powder melted into layers of glass, a narrative imagery suspended within a slab of glass emerges. I use delicate tools to manipulate glass powder is until the almost pointillist imagery is created. The glass sheets are melted together, creating an intricate, layered panel.

My artwork compositions are often arranged in such a way as to suggest a narrative, yet I employ various means to distort them – from cropping the images to blocking out faces with cast glass elements. This is designed to force us to ask what and how does one define identity. The layering of elements reacts to perceptions of gender, culture, and time. I think of this process as a type of poetic invention, a process of evoking non-linear narratives that trigger multiple associations in the mind of the viewer. The psychological dramas are played out within layers of glass, and in the process of creating, I learn more about myself.

As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
The concept of success is an elusive construct. For me, success lies in the ability to devote my time and energy to art-making. For me, the artwork is really within the thought process and creating concepts that gives me a feeling, that helps makes sense of the world, and that lives beyond me is what drives me forward.

Another success is having one’s work constantly evolve, without losing the unique perspective and signature style.

What I think is essential to an artist’s success is persistence, craft, and persistence…in that order.

How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My work is available through Michigan’s Habatat Galleries at both their Royal Oak, MI, gallery space and events including Chicago S.O.F.A. Art Fair (https://www.habatat.com). I have shown at the CONTEXT/Art Miami Art Fair with Alida Anderson Art Projects (http://www.alidaanderson.com).