What do a young educated mom and her husband do when she realizes she wants to stay home and raise their two children yet still needs the income her career provided?
They begin a home-based business making stunning pieces of painted glassware, put it up for sale on the web through a website, Facebook page, Instagram, and Amazon and pray for the right audience to discover their work.
Enter Jay and Janelle Patterson. Janelle is from Marshfield, Jay from Rolla. They met at the University of Missouri-Columbia where Jay completed his Bachelor’s degree in English, and Janelle has both a Bachelor’s in Education and a Master of Arts Education.
Janelle’s love for art was evident from the time she was twelve years old. She began by drawing cartoon characters in a sketchbook. Her first art sale was making “locker pockets” from the back pocket of blue jeans, decorated with puff paint that magnetically hung in lockers. She made and sold them to friends.
In high school she took every art class she could and painted theatrical sets for school plays. One independent study class gave her skills in black and white photography and vinyl sign making.
When Janelle was in college, she majored in art education with a focus on photography and fiber arts. She has been featured in several art shows, winning awards and prizes for her work. After finishing her Master’s degree, Janelle obtained a job teaching art in Buffalo, working for four years but after the birth of their first child, Fox, she realized she wanted to be home with him. Between the cost of childcare and gas, they weren’t clearing enough money to offset not being home with their new treasure.
Janelle turned in her resignation as public school teacher, and began teaching art classes for a home school co-op, selling canvas paintings through Facebook, but then started teaching at RSVPaint, a local sip and paint shop that had just changed hands. She carved out a niche for herself there, including teaching adults how to hand paint wine glasses.
She taught her first glass painting class in November of 2013, and then made a few pieces as Christmas gifts for friends and family, mostly cookie jars and counter top storage containers. A clamor for more products gave rise to the start of Janelle Patterson Art.
Janelle’s husband Jay is the perfect match for this new home-based business. He enjoys marketing and running their own business. Janelle loved to create art but didn’t like the paperwork and promotion end of the business. Jay loves it. While keeping his day job at O’Reilly Auto Parts as a marketing coordinator serving independently owned auto parts stores, he is able to help in the evenings and weekends with Janelle Patterson Art.
They’ve launched a new website, standardized their packaging, added a photography studio and inventory storeroom in their house, and they started shooting video. They also have a blog and a newsletter.
How does Janelle do it?
Every part of her process is brush strokes, using specialty glass paint. Recently she’s begun mixing a few types of paint to achieve some unique effects on pieces such as the Tree of Life.
Painting on glassware is tricky – it’s a curved, non-porous surface – much different then painting a flat canvas that soaks up paint as you apply it.
Each design takes several steps, each of which requires drying time in between so the paint doesn’t peel when the next layer is added. She leverages this process to create designs that feature an aspect people see on the inside of the glass, but not the outside such as in her Red Daisy design, “which looks like you’re peering inside a flower”, says Jay.
Once the design is complete, it cures for 24 hours and is baked at over 300 degrees to heat set the design on the glass.
When asked, “what’s the most interesting, unique piece she’s been commissioned to do?” Jay responded, “probably one she just finished,” which came from Instagram. The prompt was “a woodland fairy cats themed wine glass.”
Each piece of Janelle’s work is signed with the year it was produced, but this year she started numbering each piece and giving the buyer a certificate of authenticity.
The Patterson’s aim is to deliver high quality pieces of functioning art paired with great customer service.
Since they began the business, Jay and Janelle have welcomed a second child, Daisy, into their lives. They work hard to have it all, a family, an outlet for Janelle’s artistic passion and Jay’s business savvy while living in Southwest Missouri.
Jay Patterson: (573)-578-9021 Jay@
Janelle Patterson: (573)-864-2566Janelle@JanellePattersonArt.com)
