An artist, gardener and dog lover, Junco Jan (AKA Janice Williams) is one of the mainstays of Sunshine Coast art variety. Although her work doesn’t always show up beside delicate watercolour landscapes or carefully framed abstract work in oils, it is by no means less wonderful.

"Real, genuine self-expression - that’s what I think is art," Jan says, while sitting surrounded by such examples. Citing herself as a cartoonist first, she has been making artwork that has appealed to many for the past 13 years. Jan’s mother saw this creative gift in her daughter when she was very young, and hoping to help it along bought a How-To book for drawing Mickey Mouse as well as some oil paints. This turned young Janice off cartooning for many years. Rediscovering her love 13 years ago, she started creating cartoons on cards as a way to release trapped feelings and thoughts. Thanks to her friend Francine Lucas she moved from cards (which are still good sellers) to painting on found materials. Each cartoon carries a message, both in the picture and in painted text, making the form "litter-ate". While a few have failed to appreciate the outrageous puns or the joy in the Picasso-esque cartoons, these have been few and far-between. Jan’s many works are now on the verge of being published in compilations.

Cartoons are not the only form her inspiration takes. Her garden is decorated with a mixture of wildflowers and found-object sculptures - a veritable cornucopia of colour year-round. In her back yard, she has a mountain of bird houses for private concerts starting in the Spring ("Junco" comes from the birds that visit, not the found art). Jan has placed frames around nature’s own handiwork that she finds beautiful. The colour indoors is impressive, with every wall decorated, and even her fridge coated in a magnetic rainbow of letters. This ablility to live in art as well as make it landed her residence in an episode of Weird Homes. How much art does she have? Considering she has made a couple of volumes of her illustrations at 250 each, not including her mixed media or the 111 she created in a fit of imagination last Summer, the total can only be estimated as "a lot".

A few of Jan’s more interesting and different ideas include Deductions, composed of rubber ducks in various stages of decomposition rescued from Capilano River, and 40 Wacks, where ugly faces painted on wood (and designed to be tossed in the fire) take the place of hateful urges towards people. Another future project is to distribute a huge collection of wildflower seeds along the Sunshine Coast Highway.

Jan terms her Labrador cross, Sealegs, a strong influence on her work. He "pulls (her) into the world", helping her make friends and wander outside of her own head. Support for this shy artist hasn’t just come from a furry four-legged "Coaster." Last summer the coastal band Fiona Dan titled her a "Roberts Creek Icon", and a Canadian Gallery of Folk Art representative said, "if I could have taken a van I would have taken half the house" on visiting her artistic home.

According to Jan she’s "just getting cracking." Down the road she hopes to publish books of her work and move into photography, taking pictures of the strange and interesting things she sees.

Jan’s work has shown at the Gumboot Café in Roberts Creek, at the Artesia Gallery and Arts Centre Gallery in Sechelt, and at the Blue Moon Café (which will host another show in January.)