Jane Shoenfeld, BFA, MA, LPAT, grew up in Maryland and moved to New York City to study art at Pratt Institute. Jane completed her graduate training at Pratt Institute in the late 1970s and exhibited her work in NYC Soho Galleries in the 1980s. Her medium was pastel and her subject matter was the still life. She began working from photos and painting large pastels of the Southwest after her first trip to New Mexico in 1983. When she moved to New Mexico in 1987 and began working on location, her focus and passion became imaginative simplification and composition along with color. In 2006 Shoenfeld began working in a new format which she calls GridScapes. The image to the right is from the Creation Myth Series.  

Shoenfeld’s work has been exhibited and published both in New Mexico and on the East and West Coasts. Her pastel landscapes have been featured in American Artist magazine. Her painting Grace is featured on the cover of the October 2003 issue of the American Art Therapy Journal. She is currently represented by the Nightingale Wilder Gallery, Taos, New Mexico. She has been teaching for 19 years in colleges, universities and art schools, including the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Jane is also a licensed art therapist who has focused on innovative ways of teaching fine art.

Shoenfeld’s own work ranges from realistic yet mysterious renditions of the landscape to a more simplified and colorful essence of the spirit of the extraordinary New Mexico high desert, such as Canyon Colors. Her work is available in pastel, monoprints, giclée prints and acrylic on canvas. Check the Fine Art box in the order form if you are interested in seeing more of Shoenfeld’s work.

As a teacher, Jane is very skilled and experienced. She is clear, supportive and inspirational with eager and perhaps nervous beginners, and very focused and fluid in working with those who have more experience, including professional artists. Jane is known for the clarity, grace, warmth and skill that she brings to her work with groups. She communicates about art in a way that promotes creativity and teaches new students to see the way an artist sees. Jane’s longer workshops have been called "life-changing" by participants. She is now offering courses nationwide on the relationship between nature and the creative process. In 2001, she presented on this topic at the National Conference of the American Art Therapy Association and the 4th Annual New Mexico Counseling Conference. Shoenfeld will also be leading a full day workshop and excursion to Ghost Ranch in the 2007 Art Therapy Conference in Albuquerque NM. She has also taught on this subject at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. Jane is committed to offering art therapists, and other professionals, expansive opportunities to earn continuing education units and many of her workshops are approved by the New Mexico Licensing Boards.