Award-winning artist Jan Kappes has been expressing herself visually since the time she could first hold a pencil. Born in 1951 in Mattoon, Illinois, she has lived in Central Illinois most of her life. As a teenager, she had  planned to study and work in commercial art, but life intervened and her best laid plans were postphoned while she married and raised her family. She worn many hats throughout the years, as times demanded. These various untitled professions included "Mommy, wife, farmhand, horse trainer, student, graphic designer, innkeeper, truck sales woman, graduate student. Now, at long last, she is an award-winning, professional artist.

          For decades she made her home on Illinois' flat prairie, where the sunrises are as epic and far reaching as the sundowns. Part of the farming community there, she lived an agrarian life surrounded by family and livestock. Mother Nature dictated the days' work and accomplishments and supper time. Those years of wind, sun and rain also determined her artistic viewpoint. Choosing to create open-ended narratives she calls "Inkling©," these colorful, nostalgic two-dimensional pieces dominate her body of work. She also works with cast off parts of farm equipment building modest sculptures she calls "AgriSculpture©."