A dream come true for Artist Jane

Fergus Dennehy talks to Tralee’s artist, Jane Hilliard, about being lucky enough to do what she loves for a living and how even if someone doesn’t buy anything in her shop, she still loves seeing people coming in ‘just for a look’.

HER store has been a landmark in the Tralee Shopping Centre for nearly 18 years now and for Tralee artist, Jane Hilliard, it has been one heck of a journey, a journey that she says she has loved every second of.

Having been born in England and moved to Kerry aged 10, it is no wonder that Jane grew up to be one of the most talented landscape painters in the county, I mean, when you grow up in the beautiful surroundings of The Maharees, you cannot help but be influenced and inspired by the scenery.

A self-taught painter, Jane says that the craft is something that she found herself drawn towards in school due.

“I wouldn’t say that I grew up in a creative household but my father would have been creative, he would have had a flair for things like that; I’m a self taught painter, it was always something that I was good at at school and so naturally. I think I was just drawn towards something that I was good at,” said Jane, talking to The Kerryman on Thursday.

“I think it was everytime I saw a painting, I felt like ‘God, I’d really love to do that’, you know? It was always just something that I knew I’d love to do.”

Jane has been a Tralee resident since 1994 and first opened her shop ‘The Jane Hilliard Gallery’ at the turn of the millenium, meaning that she has been in operation for over 17 years now, something which she admits that can scarely believe.

“It’s great that I’m here, it’s great that I’m doing what I’m doing. I mean, I left school at 13, I shouldn’t be running my own gallery, I shouldn’t be as ‘successful’ as I am. It was all just a dream for me, I always being a young child, looking at artists and thinking ‘God, can you imagine if I could do something like that?’”

“I had an attic studio at the bottom of Rock Street and I was serving my apprenticeship there more or less for about eight years as at time I really wouldn’t have been able to hold down my own place as I just wouldn’t have been able to paint fast enough.”

“After the eight years there, I got my skills together so to speak and I thought that I’d love to get a bigger place and be out on my own and so I went for a wander around town to see what was available and lo and behold, there was this place available in the Tralee Shopping Centre and I ended up getting it and the rest is history!”

“Those first few years were brilliant because it was boom-time! Everybody wanted paintings, everybody had walls before they had houses – they were coming in to but the paintings even before the foundations for the houses were built!” she laughed again.

“I can’t deny that things were tougher during the recession years, things slowed down quite a bit, that’s when I started coming up with making prints and this kept me going over the years; you have to keep re-inventing yourself because otherwise, I wouldn’t be here.”

If you have ever been into Jane’s gallery or even browsed her wok on her ‘Artist Jane Hilliard’ Facebook page, you know the types of paintings that Joan specialises in, with one painting amongst all the others standing out the most.

“I’m predominantly a land-

scape painter, I mean I do a lot of other stuff aswell, and we are obviously surrounded by such beautiful scenery, that it’s hard not to be drawn to do something with it. I’ve been cycling a bit more recently as well and sure every time that I turn a corner, there is another potential painting in front of you.”

“I see paintings everywhere, when I look at the landscape, I think to myself ‘ah, that’d make a beautiful painting!’ It’s like it’s all there for me just to paint it!,” she laughed.

One painting (see photo above) that has outsold all of the others, prints included, is a stunningly beautiful snowy snapshot of St John’s Church in Tralee and Jane says that it is the reception that she gets from her paintings that rank amongst the fondest memories of her career.

“That creative eye and that ability to be able to maybe see something that other people can’t see, it definitely helps; I had two farmers into my shop one time and they were looking at a painting that I had done of where they were from and one of them just looked at me and said ‘we pass this every single day and it took you painting it for us to see it for the first time.’ This was one of the nicest compliments that I’ve ever received’.”

“I also, I don’t know whether all artists are like this and have big egos, but I honestly do love when people are pleased by my paintings.”

“That they come into my shop just to look at them and they say to me ‘it makes me feel good to come in and see these paintings’ - they might not buy anything but I still do love it when they come in. The fact that my work is offering somebody a chance to see something the way that I see it is amazing.”

“I can have a feeling that I’ve had a good day when nobody has bought anything but people have come in and said to me ‘oh my god, I love that painting, don’t you just feel that you could walk down that lane way’ and that really makes me happy – it pleases me to please if you will.”

During our conversation, I tell Jane of a rare sight that I witnessed on Rock Street in Tralee only a few weeks ago. I had left work one evening and I had just turned onto the street near the entrance to Garvey’s when I witnessed a man standing just outside the store, with a paint brush in hand and canvas in front of him as he happily whiled away the evening painted Kirbys Brogue Inn.

“It is really lovely to see though and I heard about and I wish that I could have gotten out to see him. I’ve tried it and from my point of view, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be! I’m used to the comfort of sitting in my own chair!” she laughed again.

“I like the peace that’s in your head while you’re painting, the place that you go to in your brain and your mind when you’re painting, it’s a meditative state and I love that and I miss that when I’m not doing it, it’s like I’m not getting my fix!”

After over 20 years of painting professionally, Jane has built up quite the repertoire of paintings and from a genuinely curious outsiders perspective such as my own, I ask her just how her process of painting come about.

“It varies with each different painting, sometime I will take a simple photograph of a scene and I will just start painting from the photograph and like the snowy scene at St John’s Church, I will add different things to it as I go along.”

“Sometimes I just need something to base it on, if I get the perfect photograph with the perfect lighting, I can paint it as is; other times them I just do surrealism where I just need to see one small seed of something and that will set me off and I will just make up the rest.”

Her advice to young painters? It’s pretty simple really - just keep going.

“Dream big, defy the odds, know you can do it and have a vision of where you want to go and just work towards it.”

Jane and herr daughter Karol have recently extended the gallery to include a framing business and are inviting everyone to come down a check it out.

Finally, Jane only has one more thing left to say and that is, thanks.

“I’d just like to take the time to thank the people who have supported me over the years because they really have been great, people have come in over the years and said the nicest things and these are the things that keep you going when you yourself think that you can’t keep going, that’s simply a brilliant feeling,” she finished.

Another masterpiece.

You know, I just love my job, I love what I do. It’s food for the soul, it’s more than a job for me.