Painter, Poet, Publisher: The Unbounded Art of Jane Ormerod

A Life Dedicated to Creativity

I first met Jane Ormerod during my tenure as director of Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center. She reached out to request a publication reading at the Center, and from that initial exchange I sensed the presence of an artist whose work was both generous and wholly her own. What followed — our conversations, her reading, and the world she carried with her— confirmed that intuition. Jane was already a poet of striking originality, but also a painter, a publisher, and a community-builder in the deepest sense.

To speak of Jane is to enter a space where boundaries dissolve. She writes poems with the instincts of a painter — attentive to color, tension, negative space — and she paints with the curiosity and associative freedom of a poet. Her collections, including Welcome to the Museum of Cattle and Recreational Vehicles on Fire, feel sculpted as much as written, full of linguistic textures and surreal flashes that expand the possibilities of the page. Even in her live readings, language becomes something tactile, kinetic, almost visual.

Equally vital to her legacy is the publishing house she co-founded, great weather for MEDIA. From its launch in 2012 until its recent dissolution, the press played a crucial role in sustaining small-press culture. It championed the edgy, the experimental, the formally daring — voices that might otherwise have remained unheard. Its annual anthologies and individual collections brought together writers from across the country and around the world, creating a vibrant, open, and adventurous literary ecosystem.

great weather for MEDIA was more than a publisher: it hosted readings, tours, and events that fostered community and nurtured emerging writers. It embraced the handmade spirit of the small press, where design, collaboration, and craft matter deeply. Its closing marks the end of an era, but the energy it released into the literary world continues to circulate.

What I admire most about Jane is how naturally she bridges disciplines and communities. She is a creator who refuses to divide her artistic life into discreet compartments; instead, she moves freely between them, allowing each to inform the other. Her poetry teaches us to see. Her paintings carry the cadence of memory. Her publishing work reveals a belief in literature not just as art, but as communion.

Looking back on our first meeting at Beyond Baroque, I’m grateful for that moment of connection and for everything Jane has contributed since — her artistry, her vision, her commitment to lifting up others. She stands as a reminder that independent culture thrives when artists are bold, generous, and unafraid to imagine beyond the given forms.