About Janet Jaffke
Janet Jaffke is a fiber and mixed media artist originally from Chicago, now based in Alsace, France. She earned her BFA in Fiber from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. After moving to France in 2013, she shifted her focus from acrylic mixed media back to fiber, exploring materials such as burlap and textiles.
For over a decade, her work has been shown internationally including New York, Paris, Chicago, Florence, and Basel, and has been featured in Fiber Art Now and The Woven Tale Press. In 2024, she was shortlisted for the Hopper Prize and co-published Catch, a book pairing Laurie Shoulter Karall’s writing with her sketchbook images.
She has held residencies in Italy, France, and the U.S., most recently completing a Master Class residency and exhibition with artist-curator Michael David at ArtCake in Brooklyn, New York.
"By stitching these fragments together, I create work that celebrates resilience, compassion, and the enduring power of the human spirit."
Artist Statement
My work explores the duality inherent in being human—how suffering and joy coexist, and how we find beauty in mending what is broken. Through burlap, gauze, and thread, I draw from personal memory and my Buddhist practice to illuminate the shared human emotions of compassion, empathy, and connection that bind us all.
I layer, drape, stitch, and distress these fabrics—their rawness and fragility echoing the vulnerability of human experience. The act of stitching becomes a meditation on repair, while distressing reveals how beauty emerges through wear and breaking. Burlap embodies labor and endurance, while gauze speaks to healing and the mending of wounds. By contrasting burlap’s earthbound weight against gauze’s transparent delicacy, I bridge the tangible world and the realm of spirit. In this process of breaking down and building up, the materials themselves undergo transformation—mirroring how we, too, are remade through our experiences of loss and repair.
Through shared moments of struggle, I strive to uncover/discover invitations to create beauty and meaning. My hope is that viewers experience the coexistence of suffering and joy ….and the recognition of the collective consciousness…. find recognition in these works—that they are not alone in their breaking or their mending, and that through the patient work of repair, we touch something transcendent.
CV
DOWNLOAD CV
Education
2024- Present Critical Discussion Symposium with Yellow Chair Salon, Michael David and Astrid Dick
2020-2024 Critical Discussion Group, (with Cheryl Taves / Bill Porteus)
2019 Color & Design Workshop with Mark Eanes, LaRomita School of Art, Umbria Italy
2019, 2015 Art2Life Creative Visionary Program
2000 Continuing Education – School of the Art Institute of Chicago
1999 Certificate, Accelerated Multimedia Training, Truman College, Chicago
1982 BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Exhibitions
2025 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France
2025 YCS Residency Exhbition, Art Cake, Brooklyn NY USA
2025 “Tactile Terraine”, Jackson Junge Gallery, Chicago, IL USA
2025 “Art as Refuge”, O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, Mill Valley, California, USA
2024 Salon d’Automne, October, Paris, France
2024 “Stand 2024”, ArtFluent, Juried Online Exhibition
2024 “25th International Open”, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL USA
2024 2024 Art en Mai, Invitational, Pont de Roide -Vermondans, France
2024 Salon d’Automne, January, Paris, France
2023 “Lifelines”, International Group Show (online), Surface Design Association.
2023 “Raw Hope”, Solo Exhibition, Noyes Gallery, Evanston, IL, USA
2023 “Lift the Sky”, Front Porch Gallery, Carlsbad CA
2022 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France
2022 “Fantastic Fibers”,Yeiser Art Center, Paducah, Kentucky, USA2022 Simplicity, Art 55, International Online Exhibition
2021 “Woven Women’s Voices Project”, Front Porch Gallery, Carlsbad CA
2021 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France
2021 Front of Bicycle, Gallerie Katapult, Group show, Basel, Switzerland
2021 “Connections”, Art 55, International Online Exhibition
2020 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France
2020 Advancing Women Artists, Florence, Italy
2020 Association Culturel il Palmerino, Florence, Italy
2019 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France
2019 Front of Bicycle, Braswell Art Center, Group show, Basel, Switzerland
2018 Front of Bicycle, Braswell Art Center, Group show, Basel, Switzerland
2018 Galerie 21, One person show, Altkirch, France
2018 Artbox Project, Virtual show, New York, New York, USA
2017 Front of Bicycle, Braswell Art Center, Group show, Basel, Switzerland
2017 Salon des 40, Group show, St. Louis, France
2017 Tom Robinson Gallery, Two person show, Chicago, IL, USA
2008 Jackson Junge Gallery, Group show, Chicago, IL, USA
2007 Tom Robinson Gallery, Group show, Chicago, IL, USA
2006 Inside Art, Three women show, Chicago, IL
2004 Annual Celebrity Chair Auction, Chicago, IL, USA
1982 Traveling Fellowship Competition, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA
2025 YCS Residency Exhbition, Art Cake, Brooklyn NY USA
2025 “Tactile Terraine”, Jackson Junge Gallery, Chicago, IL USA
2025 “Art as Refuge”, O’Hanlon Center for the Arts, Mill Valley, California, USA
2024 Salon d’Automne, October, Paris, France
2024 “Stand 2024”, ArtFluent, Juried Online Exhibition
2024 “25th International Open”, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL USA
2024 2024 Art en Mai, Invitational, Pont de Roide -Vermondans, France
2024 Salon d’Automne, January, Paris, France
2023 “Lifelines”, International Group Show (online), Surface Design Association.
2023 “Raw Hope”, Solo Exhibition, Noyes Gallery, Evanston, IL, USA
2023 “Lift the Sky”, Front Porch Gallery, Carlsbad CA
2022 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France
2022 “Fantastic Fibers”,Yeiser Art Center, Paducah, Kentucky, USA2022 Simplicity, Art 55, International Online Exhibition
2021 “Woven Women’s Voices Project”, Front Porch Gallery, Carlsbad CA
2021 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France
2021 Front of Bicycle, Gallerie Katapult, Group show, Basel, Switzerland
2021 “Connections”, Art 55, International Online Exhibition
2020 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France
2020 Advancing Women Artists, Florence, Italy
2020 Association Culturel il Palmerino, Florence, Italy
2019 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France
2019 Front of Bicycle, Braswell Art Center, Group show, Basel, Switzerland
2018 Front of Bicycle, Braswell Art Center, Group show, Basel, Switzerland
2018 Galerie 21, One person show, Altkirch, France
2018 Artbox Project, Virtual show, New York, New York, USA
2017 Front of Bicycle, Braswell Art Center, Group show, Basel, Switzerland
2017 Salon des 40, Group show, St. Louis, France
2017 Tom Robinson Gallery, Two person show, Chicago, IL, USA
2008 Jackson Junge Gallery, Group show, Chicago, IL, USA
2007 Tom Robinson Gallery, Group show, Chicago, IL, USA
2006 Inside Art, Three women show, Chicago, IL
2004 Annual Celebrity Chair Auction, Chicago, IL, USA
1982 Traveling Fellowship Competition, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, IL, USA
Publications
2022 Catch, book co-author
2022 Woven Tale Press
2018 DNA, Journal D’Alsace
1972 Chicago Tribune Style Section
1989 Chicago Times Magazine
1990, 1991, 1992 Women’s Wear Daily
1989 Made in Illinois
Artist Residencies
2020 Association del Palmerino, Florence, Italy
2017 Blueberry View Artist Retreat, Benton Harbor, Michigan
1992 Lakeside Art Center, Lakeside Michigan
1990 Art Park, Lewiston NY
1987 Art Park, Lewiston NY
Professional Highlights
2024 Finalist, Hopper Prize
2024 Artiste Sociétaire, Société du Salon d’Automne
2024 Guest Presenter – Studio Art Quilt Association Conference
2023 Inspiration Interview for Art2Life Academy
Associations
Press
Hopper Prize Winter 2024
Interview & Featured work
Fiber Art Now 2023
“Excavation” was selected for the prestigious “Excellence in Fiber” exhibition, sponsored by Fiber Art Now quarterly magazine. Juror Kate Irvin, Curator and Department Head of Costume and Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, selected just 40 works from over 1,300 international submissions. The piece was also featured in the Winter 2023 issue of the magazine. This work was created in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Woven Tale Press 2022
(pages 25-30) Interview and featured work in web’s premier online literary and fine art magazine, The Woven Tale Press, for featuring my work in the June 2022 issue. The publication brings together notable artists and writers seeking to share their work more broadly with communities actively in quest of unique voices and compelling perspectives.
Woven Tale Press Website 2022
Artist Feature – Inside the Studio
Inside the Studio offers a behind-the-scenes peek into the work environments of WTP artists, as well as insight into their creative process within these resonate spaces.
Inspiration Interview
Listen to my interview with Kerry Schroeder for the Nicholas Wilton’s Art2Life Academy. I talk with Kerry on my transition working from painting and mixed media to working with burlap and fiber.
"By stitching these fragments together, I create work that celebrates resilience, compassion, and the enduring power of the human spirit."
