Janice Fingado
Jewelry Designer

JF Designs
Studio 203, Rotary Centre for the Arts
Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada

 
Janice has been designing jewelry for 25 years. Her work is mainly contemporary with some influence of the Native Southwest where she lived for 13 years. She attends the annual Gem and Mineral Show in Tucson, Arizona each winter, where she selects unusual stones, pearls and fossils to incorporate in her silver pieces.
Each piece is one-of-a-kind.

Janice was born in Ithaca, New York in 1927. Because of her husband's business career with an international company, she has lived in Switzerland, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Spain and England before settling in Kelowna in 1980. Janice took her first course in jewelry-making in Switzerland in 1967. Other courses followed in England and in Tucson. She and her husband travelled extensively to all corners of the earth and along the way she found interesting stones: moonstones from Kathmandu, scarabs from Egypt and fossils from Alberta. She "noodled" for opals in Coober Pedy, Australia, where it is so hot that everyone lives underground.

On February 15th, 2008, Janice was the recipient of the Okanagan Arts Award for design...

The Rotary Centre for the Arts would like to congratulate our very own Resident Artist Janice Fingado for the honour she received on February 15th at the First Annual Okanagan Arts Awards ceremony. With eight different awards in the categories of Music, Media Arts, Dance, Visual Arts, Theatre, Design, Arts Educator, and Lifetime Achievement, Janice was nominated in three categories: Visual Arts, Arts Educator and Design. As the winner of the Design Award, Janice received a beautiful bronze trophy designed by Pavel Barta.
Upon accepting her award, Janice took a moment to tell the audience that she hoped her accomplishments would encourage other "older" women to put the fear of failure aside and take the first step towards accomplishing their dreams. What many in the audience may not have known is that Janice was referring to the fact that she had decided to open her own studio and pass on her knowledge and experience to her students only 3 years ago, at age of seventy-eight.

Janice's work has been sold for the last few years at the Art Ark Gallery in Kelowna. She is now delighted to be the new resident artist in Studio 203 in the Rotary Centre for the Arts, and will be offering courses in Basics of Silver Jewelry Making, Beading, Stone Setting, Earrings, etc.  Please consult the Classes page for dates and course fees.