ABOUT JAN & PROCESS
Jan grew up on Long Island, NY, reading in the crook of her favorite tree, drawing, taking ballet lessons, attending Girl Scouts, riding her bicycle, going to the beach, and using her hands to create and build with a vast array of materials. Years later, she knew it was time to bring her creative instincts to fruition.
When she was in her fifteenth year of an enjoyable, twenty-one years as a high school English teacher, drama director, and speech coach, she nurtured her penchant for design via a summer course in metalsmithing at the Mendocino Art Center in northern California. There, she confirmed her desire to pursue artistic paths was alive and well.
The sensory delights of the natural world inspire Jan, and she thoroughly enjoys turning seemingly inflexible sheets of metal into graceful and sculpturally engaging jewelry in Argentium® sterling, pure copper, NuGold (Jeweler's Brass), 14K, and mixed metals.
Commitment to her design and lively imagination shapes each part and union of every piece, while texturing, hand-engraving, repoussé, and sculpting provide unequivocal joy. Each piece is made to order and created with meticulous attention to detail, and though the style chosen will be the same as in the website photos (unless it's a custom or one-of-a-kind design), no two pieces will be exactly alike in the hand-engraving and sculpting. When Jan's jewelry translates the joy she experiences and makes you smile, her heart sings.
cont'd below photos
Gloriously happy in nature...............................and Chicago!
Go Cubs!
Academy Awards Gifting Suite, 2016, with Mimi Lesseos, Actress & Professional Wrestler/Boxer
Love California!
Working in Studio
About Jan and Ray ... Jan is in her happy place when she designs and makes her jewelry, but she also loves to ride her bicycle, ballroom dance, travel to and explore new places, and write. She wrote an urban fairytale that takes place in New York City called The Opera Cat, and it is available
on https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-opera-cat-jan-peyser/1123485929?ean=9780997297003
She and her husband, author Ray Gleason, are voracious readers, love to watch movies together, and enjoy seven, happy, loving cats and backyard visitors of the furry and feathered variety. Jan's studio has a bird's eye view of the gorgeous array of friends that alight in the trees and frolic outside her window.
Ray is a university lecturer of medieval literature, a soulful gardener, a retired Army major, and an author. He has written several books about the military, as well as moving short stories and reflections from his two years of active duty in Viet Nam, titled A Grunt Speaks, and The Violent Season. A collection of stories filled with well-crafted dialogue, imagery, humor, and empathy, these stories singularly and cumulatively take you into the minds and hearts of soldiers on both sides of the conflict. His current books are a historical fiction series which follows a young soldier into maturity in Caesar's army, with hefty doses of latin, intrique, murder, and romance. The first three books are titled The Gabinian Affair, The Helvetian Affair, and The Swabian Affair. Anecdotes from Ray, and his books, are available on www.raygleason.com, and his books also can be purchased
