Biography

While growing up in the rural Midwest, Jon Detweiler learned to love the beauty and mystery of nature. As a young man, Jon moved to the Big Sky state of Montana where he thrived for nearly 20 years in that primal land of mountains and wide-open spaces. In 1994, Jon earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Montana’s School of Journalism. After spending time in Asia and Latin America, Jon’s work as a photojournalist took him and his wife Donna to Seattle, Washington, and the Pacific Northwest.

Fifteen years and several jobs later, Jon finally turned to face the relentless hounds of creativity. His dream to train as an artist took Jon and his family to Fort Wayne, Indiana, where he graduated in 2012 from the University of St. Francis’ School of Creative Arts with a Master’s Degree in Studio Art.

After graduating from USF, Jon and his family spent two years in Europe, where Jon helped to start and teach classes for both children and adults at The Art Factory in Kandern, Germany. While in Europe, Jon participated in multiple exhibits at The Art Factory, before organizing a month-long group exhibit at a local German gallery in April 2014.

Jon and his family returned to Fort Wayne, Indiana, and the USF School of Creative Arts, where he worked as the studio technician for five years. In 2020, he completed his Masters degree in Fine Art at the University of Saint Francis. 

In the spring of 2023, Jon located a studio space for rent in Zanesville, IN, just south of Fort Wayne — a space that would accomodate his passion for printmaking and ceramics, along with landscape painting. After gutting, cleaning, painting and refurbishing that space, Jon opened The Green Door Studio & Gallery on July 15th to a crowd of friends and supporters, who celebrated this long-anticipated grand opening with an evening of food, fellowship and fine art.

Artist Statement

Whatever my place in life, I stay close to Nature – her beauty and danger, her space and motion, her complexity and power. I savor the seasons and life-forces at work around me. Because I love the natural world, I see fine art in unlikely places. My capacity to see and imagine the landscape drives the form and content of my paintings and prints.

Since the completion of my MFA in the spring of 2020, I have focused on printmaking more than painting. The tactile force of tools combined with the serendipity of pulling a print satisfies my natural bent for hands-on work and drives the creative forces that compell my art. The collagraph print, more than the etching or woodcut, offers both an initial surprise and a lingering mystery. Rarely will the collagraph reveal its true image until pulled from the plate, thus offering a surprise revelation and reward that keep me reaching for the next project.

A collagraph is a combination of textures glued onto a Plexiglas or hardboard plate, which is then scrubbed with ink and wiped to form an intaglio print (like an etching).  Sometimes I combine a monotype, collagraph and woodcut to create one image. The larger the image, the more laborious and time-consuming the process — and the more likely it is to fail miserably.

When my art sustains the viewer’s gaze and sparks a visceral response to the image, then I have succeeded as an artist.  Of course, a sale is always good too.