Janet Echelman
Boston, MA USA
"The thing I had to teach myself was how to hear my own voice. I didn't even know it! You have to hear your voice before you can follow it."
Career Roadmap
Janet's work combines: Art, Design, and Being Creative
See more careers and stories that connect to your interests.
Take Roadmap Quiz
Day In The Life
Skills &
Education
Advice for getting started
I always thought that the way you become something is you have to go to school for it. After getting rejected from every art school I applied to, I thought my dream was over. It turned out to be the luckiest thing, because it forced me to teach myself to do what I now do. I had to learn to recognize and listen to my own voice.
Here's the path I took:
High School
Bachelor's Degree
Visual and Performing Arts, General
Harvard University
Graduate Degree
Counseling Psychology
Lesley University
Graduate Degree
Visual and Performing Arts, General
Bard College
Life & Career Milestones
My path in life took a while to figure out
1.
When asked to describe her job in one sentence, she says: “I go to cities and create spaces where people can come together.”
2.
Her sculptural artworks are massive, soft, multi-layered forms made up of different kinds of fibers, often displayed in public spaces like parks or town squares.
3.
When she told her mother that she wanted to be an artist, her mom said, “That’s a great aspiration; now go make 100 paintings.”
4.
She said the message behind it was, “this is a great thing to aspire to, and I support you, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work and persistence.”
5.
She was rejected from all seven art schools she applied to, but she says that devising her own education in the arts ended up being much more authentic and fulfilling.
6.
She originally started out as a painter, but after college she took a trip to Bali, and when she tried to ship all of her paint supplies there, they got lost in the mail.
7.
As a result, she started looking around for new materials to use to create art, and she started making sculptures from the local fishermen’s nets.
8.
She gets a lot of her inspiration from nature, but she executes her vision at scale with help from computer science and engineering technologies.
Defining Moments
How I responded to discouragement
THE NOISE
Messages from Myself:
I'll never be an artist if I can't get into art school.
How I responded:
I always thought that the way you become something is you have to go to school for it. After getting rejected from every art school I applied to, I thought my dream was over. It turned out to be the luckiest thing, because it forced me to teach myself to do what I now do. I had to learn to recognize and listen to my own voice.
Experiences and challenges that shaped me
I got rejected from all seven art schools I applied to, but it forced me to teach myself and listen to my own voice. I don't have a background in STEM, I'm not even good at it. But, I'm curious.
I have no background in STEM and I'm not even good at it, but I'm curious. I had to learn complicated technologies and aspects of engineering in order to create the art that I envision.