Pursuit of artist’s true passion came ‘later in life’

Jan Clizer has an entire pallette of jobs to her credit: office work, dishwashing, helping sows deliver piglets at Washington State University, starting and running a busy picture frame store.

But it wasn’t until a decade ago that the Coeur d’Alene resident resolved to pursue her true passion: her artwork.

“It took me a long time,” said Clizer, 50. “I finally paid attention to what I needed and wanted.”

Since then, Clizer has been winning a growing base of fans in the United States, as well as in the United Kingdom, where she lives part time. She’s carved out a niche for herself with representational painting in a variety of mediums: oil, watercolor and pastels.

The theme of her art centers on her love and background of Scottish culture and interest in Celtic music, bringing misty ocean scenes, battered fishing boats, delicate instruments and bagpipers to life on canvas.

“I paint because it’s in me,” Clizer said. “I’m drawn to make marks on things. … (I) focus on what lifts me up and gives me inspiration.”

Clizer, who grew up in the Northwest, fostered a lifelong interest in the arts, sparked by her mother’s love of painting and creativity and her father’s musical ability. But art was a pastime, a creative outlet – not a career.

So she briefly studied agronomy during college, followed by architectural drafting. Then came marriage, two children and a handful of various occupations.

It wasn’t until 1997, when her son underwent multiple neurosurgeries following a basketball accident, that Clizer concluded life was too brief to not follow her desires. And in 1998, she decided to paint full time.

“I’m hard at work doing what I love,” Clizer said. “I’ve pursued as much as I could and wholeheartedly as I could.”

In 2003, she went back to Scotland, where familial roots are buried and where she traveled as a college student nearly three decades earlier. She’s bounced back and forth between continents since then, living with newfound friends in Scotland and working on commissioned pieces.

She’s painted castles, lush gardens and fishing scenes, sometimes with unusual angles and viewpoints. One painting focuses on the paint-peeling hull of a fishing boat. Another, labeled “Pipe a mile in my shoes,” depicts just the legs of a bagpiper.

Her parents taught her to pay attention to detail, Clizer said.

“I see so much beauty around me,” Clizer said. “All I have to do is look around.”

She also enjoys painting instruments, including her own fiddle, which she has played since childhood.

Clizer recently signed with Eaglecrown Ltd., of Twickenham, England, an exhibition management and licensing company. It’s a move that could propel her career forward, Clizer said.

“They’re willing to take a chance on marketing the artist’s work,” Clizer said. “I’m very excited about it.”

Clizer has no formal training in art, except for a few courses at WSU and North Idaho College. She began drawing nearly 30 years ago and started painting at age 35.

She hopes her story will encourage others to pursue their dreams.

“So many of us,” Clizer said, “don’t find our way until later in life because we don’t pay attention to ourselves.”