“Tallahassee has a warmth that makes you feel at home,” says painter Janice “Ecinja” McCaskill. 

Her work, “Meandering Through the Plaza,” speaks to this exact feeling and is part of the Tallahassee Proud exhibition. In partnership with the City of Tallahassee’s Art in Public Places Program, COCA has designed a special juried, multi-media fine art exhibition showcasing 41 artists’ civic pride. The exhibit opening is from 6-7:30 p.m. on March 4 at City Hall Gallery and will stay on display through April 13. 

McCaskill says inspiration for her painting came after a lunch with friends as she walked through Kleman Plaza for the very first time. It was early spring, and McCaskill was fascinated by the shadows filtering through the trees’ leaves, so she snapped a few photographs to use as source material. 

“There’s a warmth there, it’s a space you want to be in,” says McCaskill, who painted a “character” meandering through the scene. “I am hoping if people look at this piece they will be able to visualize this wonderful energy of walking through and slowing down in life, maybe taking time to sit a while and read a book.”

McCaskill comes from a family of storytellers, which has shaped her process of character building and making worlds spring to life on canvas. She takes her sketchbook everywhere, finding stories in everything from someone sitting at a bus stop or a young mother pushing a stroller down the street. Sometimes these characters come from childhood stories, sometimes they emerge from her mind alone. 

“One of my family members used to talk about an aunt who was sick and had leaves on her forehead to pull the fever out,” says McCaskill. “I take those visuals when they tell me these stories and I use my experience to create on canvas.”  

McCaskill wasn’t always a full-time artist. When she worked as a therapist, she would stop to admire the paintings that hung on the walls of the hospital. Her eyes often settled on a Japanese landscape that she later learned was created by one of the volunteers. 

This volunteer stopped her one day to ask if she had ever considered taking up painting herself. When McCaskill admitted she was curious but not an artist, the woman appeared the following Monday with a brown bag full of oil paints, turpentine, canvases, brushes and instructional books. McCaskill’s first painting was of a rose, which she brought in to show the volunteer, who in turn encouraged her to continue painting.

“She pulled the talent out of me,” says McCaskill. “I still have the rose and when I look at it, I get a tear in my eye because I tried to find her again but wasn’t able to. I’d love to thank her for giving me such a wonderful outlet.”

McCaskill was set on a new path, her canvases filling every nook and cranny of her home until she decided to attend the University of South Florida’s art program. She learned quickly how to paint with acrylics and increased her knowledge of history’s master painters. She says her favorite mentor was professor and professional artist Theo Wujcik, who gave her the affirmation she needed to pursue her own career. She vividly recalls him standing behind her one day in class watching her paint a woman in a field. 

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