Neighbor Featured Artist #23: Jane Wilson

Jane Wilson Shows Mastery in the Art of Chocolate

It occurs to me that all of the artists introduced and explored in previous columns have something in common. Their creations have longevity. Paintings, sculptures, quilts, and even songs endure long after those who have made them pass into history. So it must be observed that the definition of art cannot be based on the length of existence of its expressions. Ice sculpture is an art but it melts. Live theater is an art that exists only until the final curtain comes down. Wine-making is an art that ends when the bottle is empty. Fine food is one of the arts that is most universally appreciated but which disappears when the meal is over. Among the culinary arts, chocolate making is near the top. So Jane Wilson, proprietor and resident artist of Blue Ridge Chocolates, should attract your interest. Whether you know her already or are just meeting her in this feature, she is, by the very nature of her specialty, one of the most popular artists in Northeast Tennessee.
Jane’s chocolate has a European heritage. Her first encounter with confections was as a child and came from the impeccable hands of her German grandmother, who owned a chocolate shop in Washington, D.C. “I remember the first time I was ever in that shop,” she says. “A lady sat with her hand on a block of milk chocolate. The heat from her hand melted the chocolate and coated her palm. Then she’d coat a nut meat with the chocolate in her hand and set it on a tray with a whirling motion that made a pattern on each individual candy. I was hooked.” In practical terms, the quality that raises Jane’s own European sweets out of the ordinary comes from more than just the use of organic creams and fair trade Belgian chocolates. It comes from darker chocolate which yields a bonus in both anti-oxidants and flavor. It comes from the fact that she makes her own marzipan (starting from the whole nut), that delectable almond based paste that has the ability to take both shapes and colors. Above all, it is the fact that she brings both artistry and playfullness to her her confections that makes them irresistible.
Jane Wilson speaks with the beautiful cadence of East Tennessee and grew up near Elizabethton. The culinary arts were a family tradition; in addition to her grandmother, both her mother and aunt were caterers. Although she spent years as a resort hotel chef, her affinity with art extends into other media, particularly textile design. “My mother told me that my first creation was done when I was three and was given a needle and thread. I sewed the clothes I was wearing to the carpet.” She later studied at the Art Center Association in Louisville, and design at both ETSU and Eastern Kentucky University. Her early “attachment” to textiles led to a career in their design, with her products eventually collected in several different countries. More of her working life was spent as a chef at hotels in North Carolina. With her return to her childhood home in East Tennessee came also a return to her earliest memories of fine foods, her grandmother’s chocolate shop. “I came home both in geography and in making chocolate, which is something I really enjoy. I guess it was working my way back home.” She recalls the elegant small dinners her grandmother hosted, complete with chocolate leaves pealed from dipped rose petals, and petit fours made with candied rose petals from her tiny garden. The inventiveness of Jane’s creations; truffles, molded chocolate eggs filled with chocolate bunnies and orchids, woven birds nests with marzipan eggs, shortbreads with impressionist-style irises painted in icing, white chocolate frogs on royal-icing lily pads, chocolate bears or motorcycles on cookies, bear paws with caramel pads and almond claws; come not only from her design skills and art training but from her family role models. “My mother was a craftsperson in addition to her cooking skills. My father, who was in industrial design, taught me to think like an engineer. Making what you needed with your own hands was normal.” In her own business, Blue Ridge Chocolates, this innate inventiveness adds charm to Jane’s confections, in which marzipan carrots get their color from saffron and cranberry juice with green chlorophyll tops recreated from the memory of Jane’s grass-stained jeans.
With such artistry as part of her nature, it’s little wonder Jane Wilson found her way into James-Ben Gallery in Greeneville. “She came in, presented a tray of chocolates on the counter in front of me and said ‘this is what I do with my art school training’ ,“ recalls gallery owner James-Ben Stockton. “In her playfulness and splendid creativity, she is so much like other artists I work with except that her medium is chocolate, which has an amazing ability to bring people in the front door.” Like other affiliate artists with the gallery, she is willing to accept individual commissions. “I love to do special things for people”, she says. This proved particularly timely at a moment when Stockton was challenging his artists to create pieces to celebrate the Andrew Johnson Bicentennial. Jane responded with a gingerbread replica of the Johnson Tailor Shop, from which the dark chocolate roof can be removed to reveal Tennessee Truffles, with dark chocolate enrobing a molasses buttercream filling, a co-creation of Jane Wilson and Stockton, who conducts cooking classes himself. “Marquis Mountain South is planning a focus piece on Jane, the gingerbread Tailor Shop, and the Tennessee Truffle in their august issue,” he says.
In meeting Jane Wilson of Blue Ridge Chocolates, folks in this area have a great deal to look forward to. Even more than the availability of her confections at James-Ben Gallery, and the likelihood of more original creations in chocolate in the future, is the prospect of learning some of Jane’s secrets. “I’d enjoy teaching the craft and business of chocolate,” she says. Plans are being completed for a 3 day chocolate workshop to be offered this fall at the Gallery.
Blue Ridge Chocolates, for a discreet individual indulgence, a sampling selection, or in basic large quantity, can be found at James-Ben Gallery in downtown Greeneville.