Janet Shaughnessy

1952 - 2017

Janet Shaughnessy

Virginia Beach - Friends and family mourn the loss of Janet Shaughnessy, a quiet-spoken, thoughtful, gifted artist whose art and life were as one. Janet Shaughnessy died of breast cancer Oct. 1 at her home in Virginia Beach surrounded by her adoring husband, Hal Weaver, relatives and friends. She was 64.

Janet Mary Shaughnessy was born on Dec. 19, 1952 in Rochester, N.Y., where she grew up and began her career as a newspaper illustrator and graphic artist in 1983 at the Democrat and Chronicle. She was hired by the San Diego (CA) Union-Tribune in 1986 and left the next year to bring her talents to The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk.

To accompany articles in The Pilot, where she worked until 2016, she made whimsical drawings -- so expressive with simple lines, dots for eyes and little arcs for nose and mouth. She had a knack for sly comment that made its point gently, and with humor.

In 1988, she took a course at Old Dominion University with Norfolk artist Lorraine Fink, who taught her a process, which Janet adapted, that let her access her subconscious mind in fine art. She painted loosely on a plastic drop cloth laid on the floor, then placed a large sheet of paper over the cloth and walked on it, using her feet for a press. She then lifted the paper and studied the abstract image, envisioning areas where she could paint or draw to bring out a figure or story.

The resulting work used mostly grays, blacks and earth tones, was atmospheric and suggested interactions between humans and creatures.

Janet met Hal, also an artist, in 1996, and they married in 2001 on the beach on Grand Bahama Island. They were a perfect team, with their shared passion for travel, friends and art.

She completed her BFA in painting in 1999 at ODU, graduating summa cum laude.

In 2003, she moved with Hal to western Ireland to earn her MFA from Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan. There, she refined her Zen art philosophy, connected with her Irish heritage, and made lasting friends of fellow student Lori Hayes and various locals.

At Burren, she embraced an approach to art that permeated her life. Inspired by Zen Buddhism, Janet emphasized simplicity and man's connection to nature.

In meditation and in art, her goal was to cultivate a quiet, clear, uncluttered awareness of the here and now. In her drawings, "each mark is a record of that moment," she wrote for her master's thesis.

Prior to Ireland, she showed locally, including at the Chrysler Museum of Art and at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art. Back in Norfolk in 2005, she began showing outside the region, including at the Bowery Gallery in Manhattan and a campus gallery at Elmira (NY) College.

Her last major show was in 2011 at ODU's Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries, pairing work by her and Lorraine Fink, who mentored and worked alongside her starting in 2010. The friends met weekly; Janet's final paintings, a partially finished triptych on canvas, are still in Fink's studio.

Janet almost died in fall 1991, when she and a friend survived several sleepless days in a sailboat off Bermuda during a hurricane that was part of "The Perfect Storm", an ordeal retold in The Pilot and in a 1998 book that compiled similar adventures. As she manned the tiller the second night, beyond exhausted, she felt a tall, calming presence, she told author Jan De Blieu. "I swear it was a guardian angel." They were rescued the next day.

After her breast cancer diagnosis in spring 2014, Janet continued to live her life fully making art, baking, sewing, reading mysteries, hosting and traveling to see friends. Through the years, she volunteered for Tidewater AIDS Community Taskforce and Samaritan House.

The couple toured Europe and Great Britain and in February took their final big trip, to Iceland to fulfill one of Janet's lifelong dreams: to see the aurora borealis.

Her art constantly evolved. She continued to draw and paint, but also began making striking, abstract collages by snipping magazine pages and arranging them on paper. She also recently delved into pottery.

In all her art, she wrote in her artist statement on janetshaughnessyart.blogspot.com, she sought to bypass her conscious mind and "seek entrance to the authentic part of myself where truth dwells."

She appreciated the loving care of so many friends who visited and brought meals, and of her oncologist, Dr. Amy Skorupa, and her team.

Hal thanks his sister Anna Johnson; his niece, Windy Johnson; and friends Pat Barner, Bob Randolph and Michelle Hayslip for surrounding Janet with love on her final day.

Janet was predeceased by her mother, Bernice Shaughnessy, and by her only sibling, Donna "Adia" Shaughnessy, both of Rochester.

A celebration of her life is being planned locally for November. A memorial celebration also will take place Nov. 22 in Ireland at Burren College of Art, where a tree will be planted in her honor.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (https://www.bcrf.org/).