– Jane
· · · Jane’s Thread · · ·
What Have I Done?
Click here to listen. © Jane Pollak 2025 The jury's still out on AI, but after my latest experience, I might just make it Employee of the Month. In my March newsletter I confessed to my insecurity at being a beginner when I described the Hunter College...
From Baby Steps to Book Drafts to Tangled Threads: The Long, Messy, and Miraculous Journey of Creating from Scratch
Click here to listen. © Jane Pollak 2025(illustrated with pieces of my art process along the way) In March, my granddaughter Chloe became Bat Mitzvah – a time of recognition and celebration when a 13-year-old Jewish girl is welcomed into her...
Beginner Blues: Confessions of a Senior Newbie
Click here to listen. © Jane Pollak 2025 (illustrated with pieces of my art process along the way) I’ll say it. I hate being a beginner. Which is kinda silly, because anytime I try something new, which I love to do, I’m in that role. I don’t like failing....
Wishes, Not Goals
Click here to listen. © Jane Pollak 2025(illustrated with pieces of my art process along the way) Since my eldest child gave birth in 2011, I’ve kept an ongoing Notes section labeled Grandma Activities. Whenever newspaper articles or ads for family fun...
The Business Lesson I Had to Learn the Hard Way
Click here to listen. © Jane Pollak 2025(illustrated with pieces of my art process along the way) A familiar conversation with my mother in the 1980’s: Mom: When am I going to see you? Can you bring the kids for a visit on Sunday?Me: I’d like to (I lie),...
NOvember in December
Click here to listen. I’m very suggestible. When a fiber arts colleague on Instagram shared her wisdom about material storage, I accepted and felt compelled to honor her methodology. “At what point do you throw out leftover pieces of wool?” I asked,...
Born to Make Headlines… and Then What?
Click here to listen. Talk about ink in one’s veins! This birth announcement, created by my dad, is prominently displayed in my baby book from 1948. My mother, too, had a way of making things newsworthy just by naming them. When a neighbor in the Midwest...
An Unplanned Fall
Click here to listen. I took a hard stumble in mid-September, broke my shoulder and have had to pivot my well-organized life to accommodate what is. Still, I’m able to create exciting new digital mock-ups of wall installations. My fantasy: I would announce to you...
Prospecting: From Carrier Pigeons to DMs (Almost)
Click here to listen. Do you remember the staggering number of catalogs that used to weigh down our mailboxes day after day, particularly in the fall? LL Bean came weekly, if not more often, in various iterations: Women’s, Outdoors, Holiday, etc. But there were a...
A Mysterious Transfer
Click here to listen. This post tells the story of an exception to the rule of thumb: Never meet your heroes. In the early ’70s, when my art students from Westhill High School competed in the state’s Scholastic Art Awards annual competition, we were upstaged and...
How to Fill Your Well
As a fan of the Rule of Three, I mulled over what would complete my list for this month’s newsletter inspiration. It all started, serendipitously, while I was in Iceland on vacation last month and received an email from one of my collectors. She wanted me to see...
Magic, Luck or Persistence? Yes!
As a kid in the 50’s, I played a game called 7-Up. All you needed was a Spalding ball and a wall. Our garage was the perfect arena for mastering the seven different challenges of throwing the pink sphere against a flat surface: allowing it to bounce, catch it...
What’s the Connection?
On waking each morning I meditate for 23.5 minutes (a TM practice) as a way to connect with myself before interacting with others. I then take in an uplifting page from my daily reader which helps open up my connection to the world beyond my own thoughts. Then, as...
Who Cares?
I was 19 years old when Mr. Oliver Allyn, the Chairman of the Department of Theatre Arts, took me aside and said, “I want to proselytize you to become a theatre major.” It was 1968, and I was enrolled in the entry-level course, Theatre 145, at Mount Holyoke College...
What Inspiration Looks Like
Driving down William Street toward our house in Connecticut, a full moon lit up the winter-black sky. “Ach!” I exclaimed to my family of passengers, the ‘ah’ catching in my throat from the emotion behind my pleasure. Henceforth, that monthly spectacle was labeled...