Jane Waggoner Deschner is a visual artist whose medium is the vernacular photograph. Facilitated by increasingly sophisticated digital technology and the age-old art of needle-in-hand, she explores new ways of perceiving these ubiquitous, but often overlooked, products of mass culture.
Born in Pennsylvania, she grew up in Kansas and moved to Billings, Montana, over thirty years ago. She studied social geography (BA, 1969, MA, 1973 [abt]) at the University of Kansas and visual art (coursework in 1970 and 1973) at the Kansas City Art Institute, (BA, 1987), Montana State University–Billings and (MFA, 2002) Vermont College of Fine Arts.
Recently, she has exhibited at Ampersand Gallery, Portland, Oregon; Lorinda Knight Gallery in Spokane, Washington; Sweet Lorraine Gallery in Brooklyn, New York; and TurmanLarison Contemporary in Helena, Montana. For two years, her work traveled throughout Montana and Wyoming on their ArtMobiles. Opened January 2008 (traveling through 2011), a piece of hers is in Speaking Volumes: Transforming Hate, a national juried exhibition from Helena, Montana’s Holter Museum of Art and Montana Human Rights Network. Her work with embroidered photographs was selected for the AltCraft section of the 34th annual American Craft Council Show in San Francisco, August 2009.
In 2008 she participated in the thematic residency, Making Artistic Inquiry Visible, at The Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. Released on June 30, 2009, a chapter on her experience was included in the publication Making Artistic Inquiry Visible: Reflections & Conversations after the Banff Residency, by Corrina Lesser, Art Institute of Chicago. She has also been awarded residencies at Ucross Foundation, Virginia Center for Creative Arts (including a LEAW Foundation of Missoula Fellowship Grant), Jentel Artist Residency, Kimmell•Harding•Nelson Center for the Arts and Ragdale Foundation. In fall 2010, she will be an artist-in-residence at Red Deer College, Alberta, Canada.
Deschner has presented at meetings of the College Arts Association and International Society for the Arts in Healthcare. In 2006, she co-authored and designed the book, Artists-In-Residence: The Creative Center’s Approach to Arts in Healthcare, with The Creative Center in New York City, where she has twice been a fellow. She was awarded two Excellence Awards in the Blair Sadler International Healing Arts Competition. In May 2008 she began a five-year appointment on the Montana Arts Council. In September 2009, she joined Montana State University–Bozeman Department of Art’s National Advisory Council.
In addition to freelancing as a graphic designer, she teaches with the Writer’s Voice and at Rocky Mountain College where she is the gallery director. Her work is in the collections of Federal Reserve Banks in Minneapolis, MN, and Helena, MT; University of Montana; Montana State University–Billings Foundation; Yellowstone Public Radio; Nicolaysen Art Museum, Casper, WY; Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT; and individuals across the US and in South Korea.