Jane Zamost: A Tour Through the Escapades of Her Mind

Pictured Above: The Investors Bank Art & Healing Gallery at Capital Health Medical in Hopewell, New Jersey. Photo Credit: Amy Masgay for Arts News Now.

A Tour Through the Escapades of Her Mind

Arts News Now Features Writer, Amy Masgay interviews Artist Jane Zamost about rediscovering her art, her recent solo show and what’s next

By: Amy Masgay

A hospital is not the first place that comes to mind when thinking of or looking for art, but maybe it should be. After all, who could possibly benefit more from being surrounded by something beautiful than those in the process of healing?

Jane Zamost, a New Jersey-based painter and mixed media artist, takes this concept even a step further. She’s been working for several years to turn the act of healing into an endeavor purposefully fueled by art, or more specifically, the creation of art.

After working to develop the Healing Arts Program at Capital Health, where she would go into every patient’s hospital room with the exception of those with infectious diseases, she also began offering workshops out of her home studio. Now, Zamost is the first artist to have a solo exhibition, “Escapades of My Mind,” at the hospital itself. She says this show, for her, is “like coming home,” and this is what brings me to the Investors Bank Art & Healing Gallery at Capital Health Medical in Hopewell, New Jersey.

Pictured Above: “Water and Sky, Peace and Calm” by Jane Zamost. Photo Credit: Amy Masgay for Arts News Now.

I was greeted by the artist herself, along with Capital Health’s Foundation Relations Associates, Tara Burns, who worked closely with Zamost to curate this exhibition. Zamost had just returned from a trip to Iceland the night before and was already talking about how the untouched nature and unpopulated lands of the country were already inspiring future work.

This is how Zamost operates, allowing an organic flow to guide her work, and she doesn’t allow herself to be driven by fear.

“I don’t stop myself. I’m at the point that I’m old enough to say if it’s a mistake, if it doesn’t look good, I have no problems with that. And actually some of my biggest mistakes have been some of my favorite pieces because I just keep going and I find a way to make it work for me.”

This mindset did not come easily for Zamost. After studying at Mason Gross School of the Arts through Rutgers University, she studied for a semester in London, which exposed her to a very different, more freeing, method of learning. She recounted a day when she was feeling blocked, and her instructor could sense she did not feel like painting. She was told, “Go and do what you want to do then. You’re an artist. Go.” The concept was a new one for her, and clearly has stuck with her, although it seemed to lay dormant for several years.

After graduation, Zamost began a career in medical PR and grew her blended family of four children. She was a very involved mother, volunteer on the PTO and working as a class mom, and all this, her art took a backseat. That is until one day when her husband came home with some paints and canvases and an easel set up in their attic. He told her she needed to get back to her art, and today she called this gesture the most romantic gift she’s ever received.

Still, after so much time away from her art, she worried she had forgotten how to paint. She stared at her attic studio for three months before picking up a paintbrush, but ever since, she hasn’t slowed down.

Zamost began with portraiture at Artworks Trenton, and when the class size became too large, she lost her space. She says it was for the best, however. She kept wandering away from the goals set for the projects in the class and her instructor would say, “Jane, just go back to the fundamentals.” She felt she had so many other things to say, and trying to stick to the set path made her too tense to produce work she loved.

Trying to find the liberating feeling of her instruction abroad, Zamost began working with Kate Appel, a woman who had less technical training than she did, but was able to show her how to use meditation as a guide for her art. She calls her art her therapy, which is not an uncommon feeling among creatives in general, and now she shares it as a kind of therapy for others as well.

Zamost believes in making a mess, and encourages those she works with to forget perfection, and instead aim for perfectly imperfect. “When I do workshops…people don’t say that about playing tennis. They know they’re not going to start out as this amazing tennis star. They just have fun. I tell people they just gotta have fun. That’s why they came. They didn’t come to be Picasso. They came to just enjoy the process and see what it does for their soul.”

Pictured Above: “In the Balance of Red and Blue.” Photo Credit: Amy Masgay for Arts News Now.

Now, Zamost says her goal is just to be interesting. She made the choice that she was going to do whatever she wanted. After exploring her artwork myself, my determination is that if something is interesting to the artist, that will most likely translate to being interesting to the audience.

And while I found all of her pieces interesting, “In the Balance of Red and Blue,” particularly struck me. This was a piece created for a show on breast cancer awareness, and the three-dimensional aspect of the multi-media piece gave the impression that I could stare at this work for days and still not see all of it. If I wasn’t conducting an interview, I might have given it a try.

Shortly following this piece was a collection that demonstrated Zamost’s personal experience with art as a form of healing therapy, not from the instructor perspective, but from the recovering perspective.

In March of 2022, Zamost fractured her shoulder in three places while on a ski trip and she lost the use of her dominant right hand.

“I was in a really bad place…I came back and I couldn’t cook and I couldn’t dress myself. I couldn’t bathe myself. I couldn’t do anything.”

This would be difficult for anyone to endure, but for an artist who’s therapy was using her hands to create, it was unbearable.After two weeks of feeling lost in her physical pain and the gloom of not being able to move freely, she decided after all these years of showing others the healing powers of art, it was time she took her own advice. Using only her left hand, she made herself some coffee, put on some music, and used her art to get out of her head and distract herself from the pain she was experiencing nonstop. “It saved me,” she said.

Pictured Above: The “Lefty” collection by Jane Zamost. Photo Credit: Amy Masgay for Arts News Now.

In the series, called “Lefty,” Zamost points to her signatures in the corners of each piece as a way to see the gradual changes and improvement in her dexterity as she was forced to rely only on her left hand.

“I believe that every single human being is creative. It might not necessarily be art, but I think everyone can do art for the enjoyment of art. You might not be the next Degas, but that’s not to say you won’t experience something really fulfilling.”

In this instance, Zamost used her creativity to reconcile a dramatic change in her world–her inability to use her dominant hand to take care of herself or to create art. However, she has also used her art to try to make sense of the often senseless world around her.

Pictured Above: “Enchantment of Summer” by Jane Zamost. Photo Credit: Amy Masgay for Arts News Now.

“Sanctuary,” for example, was painted during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when violence against Asians in the United States rose dramatically. “Pondering the Color of Life B” was painted shortly following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota.

“I constantly think in this world of ours lately, that the fundamental desires of every human being is to have a roof over their head, to have love in their home, to have food on the table. We’re all very similar. It’s not like there should be that much disparity in the world when our necessities are all the same. And somehow, through life, through power, through economic challenges, that all seems to get washed away.”

Zamost says she tries to use color and symbolism to demonstrate her love, which again makes me consider how an institution like a medical center, where people tend to need more love and support than anywhere else, is the ideal space for such an exhibit as “Escapades of My Mind.”

“I didn’t come in thinking I would sell a lot, because the purpose obviously is to heal, and to give people a view.” However, Zamost has sold four pieces from this show, and at other hospitals as well. “They don’t come with the desire to buy. They come with a desire to just feel good and then if inspiration hits them, then they buy it. So, it’s a different process than going into a regular gallery.”

In a way, this way of connecting with a piece of art, almost by accident and not in a traditional space where one might be in the mindset of finding and purchasing art, feels more special, when taken by surprise.

When asked what’s next for her, as the show at Capital Health Medical Center is closing at the end of the month, she shared that some pieces will appear at the Long Beach Island Arts Foundation and she has a show going up at the Jewish Center in Princeton. Of course, she continues to offer workshops.

Pictured Above: “Make ‘Em Laugh.” Photo Credit: Amy Masgay for Arts News Now.

“I encourage people to bring out their own creativity and not to be scared of it. The idea of making art is not for the finished product. If you do love the finished product, that’s your extra gift, but the reason why you do art is for how you feel inside, that it gives you a calm.” Zamost said. “It’s good for you, it’s healthy for you, it’s another way to either embrace the fabulous things going on in your life or to support the needs that you have that are difficult and challenging and get them out…I just think that the power of art is vast and that people need to embrace it, encourage it, and enjoy it just for the sake of enjoyment.”