Jan Lipes looked to his past to reshape his future.
by Bruce B. Blackburn III

“As much as water or food, people need art to survive,” declares New Hope, PA artist Jan Lipes of the importance of art in our lives. “That’s held true in my own case. It really is my reason for being here. Without it, I don’t see any other way to interact with the globe. It’s what I do—what I need to do.”
Passion such as this helps define the artist, who describes his paintings as “epiphanies,” which he says are inspired by life’s everyday scenes. Soft-spoken and gracious, Jan projects the air of a thoughtful individual who is serious about his work and determinedly pursuing his role as artist. Art, in fact, has been his salvation. You see, Jan never planned to paint, and how he became an artist is a one-of-a-kind, inspiring tale.                      Doing the Right Thing
Born and raised in Bronx, NY, the sixty-two year-old artist spent his student years preparing for medical school. After high school he earned a degree in Literature from City College and an M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, both in New York. In 1981, he and his wife, Janet, moved to Solebury, PA where a position as emergency department physician awaited him at nearby Doylestown Hospital. He fell irrevocably in love with the Bucks County countryside, and he loved practicing medicine. “When I went into medicine there was never any question about it,” he recalls. “I thought: I’m going to be a healer and that’s a good thing to do. I wasn’t tortured about the validity of my life’s work, I had no doubts about what I was doing.”
In his early thirties, Jan was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and the disease took its toll as time passed, so that by 1993 he could no longer handle the physical demands of his job. He left the hospital confined to a wheelchair. His sons were young and he was determined to be an involved father. He wondered—How will I manage?  What can I do that gives my life meaning?
What can I do that gives my life meaning?                                                                 The answers came by looking to his past. “I asked myself what stirred me the most other than medicine,” he says.“Before I disappeared into the bowels of the hospital for twenty years and lost touch with my art side, I was constantly doodling,” he explains. The pages of his school notebooks were laced with drawings. Even as a physician, he was always pulled toward art. He sketched in pen and ink, took pottery lessons in Manhattan, had drawing sessions with his children, learned black-and-white photography and did his own darkroom work. “Art was always surfacing.” he says.
Once Jan made up his mind, he began another journey entirely: he would learn how to paint. As surely as he’d known without reservation that medicine had once been the perfect career choice, he knew that being an artist would be equally fulfilling.
Fine Tuning
“It was trial and error,” he says. I picked up a brush and started doing it. I pushed paints around on the palette and eventually started to get somewhere.” Having lost the use of his dominant right hand, he worked to fine-tune his left hand’s coordination. Immediately he loaded up his palette with far too many paints. His motor skills improved, but more elusive was figuring out what colors he would use for his personal palette. “I did a brutal surgery on my palette and brought the number of colors down to five or six. I’m still using those same basic colors.”
Along with architecture, riverscapes and canal views, landscapes are Jan’s primary subjects, which he paints in the style of the New Hope Impressionists before him. There is an ordered, well-balanced aspect to his compositions. Similar to the writer whose every word is carefully chosen to enhance his story, every brush stoke Jan employs is essential to his canvas. Colors are vibrant, by turns tonalist and Fauvist, and his paintings often contain mirror-like reflections off the canal and river he so likes to portray.
A Contemplative Journey
His airy, light-filled studio looks out on a spacious yard lush with mature landscaping—a view that inspires peaceful rumination.
Jan once painted plein air, and Janet made it possible. “She carried my easel, toolbox, canvases—everything!—and set me up in these out-of-the-way places so I could paint. She was taking care of two adopted kids as well as our own.” There were also other distractions, and his technique required uninterrupted attention; his home studio offered refuge. “Janet served as a great inspiration to me. She was my best critic critic and provided me all around support. Without her help, I would have never have accomplished what I’ve accomplished,” he insists.
“I’m not a quick painter, I’m slow and deliberate, my paintings take a long time to do,” he says. “They evolve. I see things emerge. It’s a whole process, a contemplative journey.” To judge by viewer reaction to his painting, the artist has found sure footing on his new life path.
Jan’s paintings have captivated many fans, accumulated numerous awards, and been exhibited at art shows and galleries throughout the region. His refreshing perspective of the New Hope-Lambertville Bridge, Free Bridge Sister Towns, became the poster and auction painting for the 2002 Lambertville-New Hope Winter Arts Festival, and he is featured/cover artist for the Area Guide to Bucks and Hunterdon Counties 33rd edition, 2002-2003. He is represented in Philadelphia by Newman Gallery and in New Hope by Gratz Gallery & Conservation Studio. He also had a weekly column on art for the Bucks County Herald.
“As I’m working, my focus is entirely on each painting and completing it. After that, like children, they’re on their own, launched into the world. It’s thrilling to think about where they’re going to go!” Like collectors of fine antiques, he subscribes to the concept that we play a caretaker role when it comes to fine objects; that antiques and art enrich our lives for a finite time until passed on to another appreciative custodian.
Recycling the World
Driven to create art, Jan says “I have a tremendous compulsion to paint. It must come out, I can’t just keep it in, it’s got to be recycled.” That’s how he sees what he’s doing: recycling the world around him into another form—his paintings.
“People say I’m inspirational, but I’m nothing special. Everybody has their challenges. My struggles are like other peoples’ struggles,” he observes. “Some have more, others fewer.” Ever expanding his scope, Jan just last year began painting night scenes and incorporating snow into his repertoire. Whatever else life holds, he has discovered, the learning goes on forever.

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Jan Lipes has never let his illness define him…in fact, he is the definition of the Power of an Unbreakable Spirit. He did not resign to his challenges…he faced them head on, rose above them and, used them as a platform to redefine who his is. To learn more about     Jan Lipes and see more of his artwork, go to: janlipes.com

         Sunset Lambertville 630 x 430

           Apres le Deluge 647 x 430