Janet Ward

Embellishing jean jackets is not what Janet planned to do with her fine arts degree. She thought she would be a painter but ended up majoring in photograph. After graduation, Janet settled with her family in West Bragg Creek and has worked in various shops and galleries in the hamlet. One of the store owners asked her to sew some embellished jean jackets for her shop and that is how she started doing her embellished upcycled denim wear.

In 2009 she joined the Bragg Creek Artisans and participated in the Christmas Sale, selling her jackets and over the years has added, denim short, skirts, pants and little tutus to her repertoire.

In 2017 a small group of the Brag Creek Artisans got together to explore opening a year-round artist collective. The shop opened in July of that year as “The Studio and Gallery in Bragg Creek”. The name was later changed to The Painted Moose and Janet has been part of the collective from the beginning.

When Janet sees the back of a classic jean jacket, she sees an empty frame waiting to be filled. The fabric sewn on the back gives them personality and turns them into a one-of-a-kind, wearable piece. When she is sourcing the second-hand jackets, she also looks for used place mats, wall hangings, cushions and various other pieces of fabric to disassemble and sew on the backs of the jackets. Though she occasionally does more than one with the same fabric backing, for the most part, every jacket is one-of-a-kind.