People Profile: Jan Burleson

This article was originally published in the Daily Post Athenian in Athens, Tennessee on January 11, 2019.

“Rochambeau Drawings 2012-2013” is a collection of drawings by Athens artist, Jan Burleson. In honor of the artist’s first solo show, and in the spirit of dreamers everywhere, I’d like to share again her story, as printed in this publication on May 31, 2017: Jan Burleson, a local artist, has a piece in Knoxville’s Dogwood Arts Exhibition.

Reflecting on the three juried art exhibits that have included her work since she earned her Bachelors of Fine Arts in December, it occurred to me that she, my mother, would make a good subject for a column. She agreed, conditionally.

The condition: I am to write this article not about her, but, instead, about the painting in the Dogwood Arts Exhibit. Well, mom, let’s pretend this is the first and last time I’ll act against your wishes.

I suppose it’s common for a young woman to uphold her own mother as a personal hero.

I am fortunate, not only to have a mother who has encouraged me unceasingly, but also to have witnessed my brave mother listen to the quiet, constant yearning of her own, and achieve a lifelong dream.

Jan Burleson graduated high school and wanted to study art. After a few semesters at East Tennessee State University, pragmatism overruled her desire to create and gave way to a new desire to help the world. She completed her BS in Social Welfare and went on to earn a Masters of Science in Social Work from the University of Tennessee. The Department of Human Services, which funded her MSSW, brought her to Athens, where she acted as department supervisor. She later worked for Hiwassee Mental Health Center, in Dr. Shoemaker’s practice in Cleveland, and in the early 1990s opened a private social work practice with colleague and friend, Julie Holt.

Unaccustomed to life in a smaller town, Jan returned to her creative inclinations to pass the evenings and build relationships. She took watercolor classes from both Betty Grater and Frances Graves, was active in the formative years of Athens Community Theatre, and took an evening photography class at Cleveland State Community College. Photography was an early shared love between Jan and my father, who built a dark room in a “cave” in her house, and later, as I recall, built one from trash bags in the basement of our house on Walcon Lane.

Mom took that photography class for years – before I was born and throughout my middle and high school years. What began as “something creative to do in the evening” grew into something much deeper, a way of kindling her long felt need to make art.

“To speak about what one can experience in a dark room is another thing,” Jan mused, “what it’s like to be under the safelight in the solitude and solace of a dark room, and to see an image come to life is transcendent.”

The notion that art is transcendent is the theme of the painting that is supposed to be the subject of this article. I will tell you about it, because it’s important, but I’d like to finish mom’s story first.

I know that art is powerful because I have watched it be a source of inspiration and expression, growth, and renewal for my mother my entire life. “Someday I will go back,” was a refrain Jan held on to for years of photography class and home studio work.

“Anyone who has had a desire, a need, to make art,” Jan spoke quietly, “knows that it is a need of the soul and spirit, an urge that can’t be put into words.”

In 2007, after both her parents, for whom she had cared for many years, departed this life and their house was sold, Jan committed to nurturing her urge to make art and “went back” to earn a BFA. She began with fundamental courses at Cleveland State and, after transferring to the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, was accepted into their competitive Painting & Drawing program. Our courses intersected at UTC while I was earning my master’s and we often had coffee or lunch, bemoaned a paper due (that was me, mom loves writing papers), and mom even crashed on my couch once or twice, hours short of pulling an “all-nighter.”

In December 2016, Jan Burleson graduated from UTC with her BFA. She didn’t walk and hasn’t allowed any pomp or circumstance about that or her retirement from private practice. I offered that as evidence as to why she should let me write a newspaper article about her achievement. She sighed and smiled. “Well, it does matter to me that this story could be an inspiration to other people, on whatever level in whatever way, it’s okay to believe you can do something ‘impossible’.”