Mixed-Media Jewelry Artist Jan Yager Dies at 72

Philadelphia—Jewelry designer and mixed-media artist Jan Yager died Aug. 14 following a 12-year battle with metastatic breast cancer.

She was 72.

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Yager attended Western Michigan University, graduating with her bachelor’s degree in jewelry and metalsmithing in 1974. 

She also attended the Rhode Island School of Design, earning her master’s degree in 1981.

A memory from Yager’s childhood that inspired her to pursue art was shared in her online obituary.

“One day when I was 10, my next-door neighbor Anna, who was an artist, called me to the fence to see what I was drawing. She asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Without hesitation I replied, ‘I want to be an artist,’” Yager said.

“With discernable emotion, she pointed at me and said, ‘You better be really sure, because once you start you will never be able to quit.’ About a decade later in my college dorm room her words came back to me, and I finally understood what she meant.”

In 1983, Yager moved to Philadelphia and established her studio at 915 Spring Garden St., a historic building for artists.

She maintained her studio there for 35 years.

One of the artists in the building, Amy Kann, shared memories of Yager online.

Kann recalled Yager lobbying the city to create “the artist’s pass,” which would allow artists free museum admission and seats in auditoriums that weren’t sold out.

“She believed that cities were more vibrant with a healthy arts community and that artists needed to be able to see all kinds of art in order to thrive—music, dance and the art museums,” Kann wrote. 

“It was so forward-thinking and so generous, both for the city and for artists she might never know. That’s who she was to me. Smart, caring and determined. The city wouldn’t budge, but I so admired her tenacity and flat-out badger quality.”

In the early ‘90s, Yager took a sabbatical, dedicating two years to researching the history and philosophy of jewelry and jewelry making, inspiring a pivot in her creative work.

She went on to develop her “City Flora/City Flotsam” series, which was based around items found in the urban environment around her Philadelphia studio.

The “City Flotsam” series centers discarded items like crack vials, cigarette butts, and bullet casings, while “City Flora” features plants that grow through sidewalk cracks, like chicory, lamb’s quarters, and purslane.

Following a lecture she gave in St. Louis, Missouri, Yager was offered a solo show at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London. 

The “Jan Yager: City Flora/City Flotsam” exhibition took place in 2001.

The following year, the museum selected her “Invasive Species: American Mourning Tiara” for an exhibition it was organizing on tiaras. 

In 2007, she was featured in the “Landscape” segment of the three-episode PBS documentary series, “Craft in America: Memory, Landscape, Community.”

Over the course of her career, Yager received grants from foundations such as the PEW Fellowship in the Arts, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Anonymous Was a Woman foundation, and the Rhode Island State Arts Council.

Yager was also a member of the advisory board for the Association for the Study of Jewelry and Related Arts (ASJRA).

ASJRA co-directors Elyse Zorn Karlin and Yvonne J. Markowitz recalled Yager speaking at the group’s first conference 19 years ago and how the audience was “fascinated” as she spoke about her work.

Yager’s work lives on in the permanent collections of the V&A, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Museums of Scotland in Edinburgh, the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. 

Yager is survived by her daughter Julia Yager and son-in-law Michael Aboff, as well as her sister Karen and her husband Timothy Galvin Sr., and her brother Robert Yager.

She was predeceased by her husband Rick Shnitzler and her parents, Mary Linda (Parrish) Yager and Casper Yager Jr. 

While there are no plans for a formal gathering, donations can be made in her name to Craft in America via its website.