In 1976 I apprenticed to Stephen White, an architect who had developed a unique form of lightsculpture made from thin strips of wood bent into a frame then covered with paper soaked in polyvinyl resin and illuminated from within y incandescent light bulbs. Most of my designs are inspired by natural forms.

I have done shows in Hawaii and California. My work has been used on the stages of Startrek; Generations. I am featured in the December 2003 issue of The Robb Report and appeared on HGTV, the Carol Duvall Show episode #1618, this May. Recent commercial installations include Iron Wok China Bistro in Temecula, Bliss Restaurant in Beverly Hills, and Zov's Bistro in Irvine.

Janet's eclectic designs combine her lifelong interests of fashion, art, and technology. She learned to sew at age 7, and installed miniature lights in her own dollhouse. Over the years, her costume-making hobby began to incorporate electronics, with illuminating results.

With more than eight years of experience in this newly-emerging field, Janet is well known as a pioneer and innovator, creating unique apparel for a variety of international clients.

Do you need to be a rocket scientist to design clothes like this? Probably not, but it doesn't hurt, either. Janet has extensive formal training in engineering.

Her other artistic interests also exhibit a high-tech edge. Janet paints in an abstract geometric style, and creates illuminated wall panels and sculptures, in addition to the lighted clothing.

Janet is a Pisces, and has lived in the San Diego area since 1979.

Artist's statement for Janet Cooke Hansen

Janet Hansen is an interdisciplinary visual artist, scientist, fashion designer, and engineer. Her formal training is in areas as diverse as robotics, image processing, electronics, molecular biomechanics, and dynamics analysis of aerospace structures.

• The Phoenix School of Fine Art - Phoenix, AZ - Jay Datus - Oils - 1 year
• Ecole d'Paul Coze - Scottsdale, AZ - Life Drawing, Oil and Tempera, Quick sketching, Water Color - 4 years
• Independent Study - Hans Burkhart, Painter - Laguna Beach, CA - Acrylics - 1 year
• Apprenticeship Completed - 5 years with Jos Maes, Glazenier - 5th Avenue Crafts Corner, Scottsdale - The Flemish Glazenier Stained Glass Studio - Contemporary and Traditional Windows for Church and Modern Architectural Settings, Mosaics and Laminated Glass Ware

• Life Long Painter / Photographer / Constructions in Mixed Media
• Pleasure Gardening and Landscaping
• Lover of Music and Cultural Diversity
• Ongoing 15 year Zen Buddhist Student with Certified Teacher / Priest

She has experimented in other areas of fiber art and has created miniature silk tapestries, and silk paintings, art quilts, and art felts. Her artwork is admired around the world and is found in museums and private collections throughout Europe, North America, and New Zealand.

From 1997 through 2000, Valentyna Royenko was a distinguished professor of art at Kiev National University of Culture and Art and headed very successful programs during her tenure.

Since 2001, Valentyna has been living and exhibiting in California, and today, she continues to explore the amazing and inspiring possibilities of fiber, while pursuing her dreams in the USA.

Artist°òs Statement

Color is the spiritual language that reveals my being, the movement of my soul from my darkest days to the light of the full spectrum of my new life. Color is the medium that blends my old life with my new.

My life has been full of strong emotion, which has been imprinted on my soul and reflected in my art. I have experienced the universal feelings of love and pain, sorrow and exultation. I was thrown down into the depths of darkness and despair from which I almost did not recover. However, in time, this experience became a catalyst for my artistic work, forever altering my sense of color, forcing me to work only with abstraction.

All these years later, my undiminished photographic passion has received the support of generous sponsors and patrons, such as the Polaroid-Nippon corporation who commissioned a show of my work for their gallery in Tokyo or the CECUT in Tijuana, Mexico, who bought a portfolio of my images and organized a bicultural, cross-border event and traveling exhibit built around it.

My documentary work has traveled throughout Mexico for two years through the auspices of the French cultural services.

My images have also had the good fortune to catch the attention of the Tuscany Photographic workshops, which attracts the best names the photoworld can boast of, and to which I was invited to participate when I won their first prize.

With the advent of the new digital technology, I have endeavoured to push the photographic envelope by exploring formats much larger than the conventional photo standard has so far permitted, bringing photography a more architectural dimension or visibility.