Teaching Sonoma To See — Janis Kobe
Janis’s Sonoma Journey — I Helped Build
This is the third of three stories about Janis’s relationship with Sonoma Valley.
🟩 The View That Introduced Me to Sonoma — Chapter 1
Janis first experiences Sonoma from a commune high on Cavedale Road, where friends raise goats, grow food and live close to the land.
🟥 A Piece of My Heart — Chapter 2
After years on the mountains surrounding town, Janis moves into Sonoma and knows she has found the place where she belongs.
🟦 Teaching Sonoma to See — Chapter 3 — I Helped Build (You are reading this story.)
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Janis helped Sonoma children discover art, prepared aspiring students for art school and co-founded Art Escape. Her unusual gourd art connected her to the Sonoma Art Guild and carried her teaching as far as Ghost Ranch in New Mexico.
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My life in Sonoma became deeply connected to art.
While I was living on Lovall Valley Road, I became involved in the arts and began teaching art to children. The thing I loved most was teaching kids how to draw and design.
After my divorce, I took every dime I had and enrolled at ArtCenter College of Design in South Pasadena. I majored in illustration. When I finished school, I came back to Sonoma and began teaching those same young people again.
I worked with students from fourth grade through high school. I taught them how to understand light, drawing and design, and how to become more involved in their artwork.
When students wanted to attend art school, I helped them assemble their portfolios. I showed them how to present their work and include the things instructors would want to see. Helping a young artist believe that art school was possible was especially rewarding.
I was also a co-founder of Art Escape, a small art school in Sonoma. Creating a place where children could make art had been a longtime dream, and helping start it is one of the things I am most proud of.
My own art took an unexpected turn after a friend and I attended a workshop at Jack London Ranch. The workshop was about gourds. I had never even seen a gourd before, but by the end of the day I was completely in love with them.
My friend and I began driving to Southern California, filling a van with gourds and bringing them home. I used a technical wood-burning pen to draw detailed illustrations on them. I also used a tiny jigsaw to create cutwork.
The finished pieces were unusual, and people collected them. I sold them through the Sonoma Art Guild and other galleries, often as quickly as I could make them. Some sold for as much as $1,000, which was a great deal of money at the time.
My friend made whimsical gourds, turning them into dragons and other creatures. We were invited to fill her van with gourds, travel to Ghost Ranch in New Mexico and teach a workshop. No one there had offered anything quite like it before.
We were invited to teach again in Sedona, although family illnesses kept us in Sonoma to care for our parents.
Some of my happiest creative memories are of sitting in my recliner beside my mother. She was a doll artist, and even in her later years she continued to create. She worked on her dolls while I worked on my gourds. We made art together.
In 2006, I was honored as a Treasured Artist. The recognition meant a great deal to me, but the greatest reward was always the work itself: making art, sharing it and helping young people learn how to see.
That is how art tied me to Sonoma. It gave me a community, and it gave me a way to contribute to the community I love.
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Janis helped build Sonoma’s creative life both institutionally and personally. She co-founded a children’s art school, mentored students from their first drawings through art-school portfolios, participated in the Art Guild and introduced audiences to an unusual art form.
Her contribution was not only the work she made, but the confidence and curiosity she cultivated in others.
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This story was created from interviews with Janis Kobe conducted by Don Lundgren. Janis’s words have been edited for length and clarity while preserving her voice, experiences and meaning.
