Gust Gallery - Fine Arts

Janet Grabner was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. She loves the outdoors and spends a lot of time in nature. She was an artistic child who received art awards throughout her school years. She spent weekends camping and canoeing with her family. After high school she worked and travelled extensively in Mexico before deciding to attend art college. In 1989 Janet graduated, with distinction, from the Alberta College of Art (AUArts) Ceramics program. She has worked with clay since graduating.

After art college Janet worked as a technician and instructor at Windsor Park Pottery Studio in Calgary. During this time, she set up her home studio and developed her craft, selling her work at craft fairs and some local galleries. Janet met her husband, John Dahm, during this time when he took a pottery class that she was teaching. John helped Janet realize her dream to have a pottery studio in a small town while raising their family.

In 1996 Janet and John moved to East Coulee, in the heart of the Badlands of Alberta. They opened Caracol Clay Studio and Gallery that features Janet's work. The studio is open May-September and is visited by tourist and locals alike, looking for a piece of pottery created in the Drumheller Valley where the studio is. Janet also sells a line of pottery, wholesale, to museum shops and galleries that are looking for artwork handmade in Alberta. John helps with studio tasks and sells Janet's work at markets. Together they have created a thriving pottery business.

Janet's "Prairie Fossil" imagery is inspired by the transformation of the landscape around her and the fact that Alberta was once under the Bearpaw Sea.Ocean fossils found in Alberta and many trips to the ocean have enhanced this vision. She hand builds her work without a potter's wheel using Alberta clay. Janet fires her work in both an electric and a propane raku kiln. She hand paints each piece of pottery with glazes she makes herself.

Like a natural object, each piece she creates as unique. Caracol is the Spanish word for the snail shell. It is the intrinsic qualities of the shell and other natural objects that are her inspiration. Caracol is what is seen by her eyes, felt by her heart and made by her hands.