98 PUNCHMAGAZINE.COM STEP INTO THE STUDIO Ink Dwell’s headquarters reinforces Jane’s blending of styles, serving as an homage to natural history as much as a studio for art. Cans of paint, color wheels and buckets of brushes are interspersed among shelves of abalone and conch shells, animal skulls and jaw bones, feathers, beetles, pinecones and tree stumps. Bookshelf titles range from Rivers Run Through Us and Under a Wild Sky to Into the Nest and Aliens of the Deep. “Ink Dwell is a play on the words ‘inked well,’ and then art about the places I like to dwell,” Jane explains as she passes by Cliff, a taxidermied black bear who surveys project mockups from his centrally-located rock. Even Ink Dwell’s egg logo suits the studio’s symbiosis of nature and art. “It represents a natural object that is truly a work of art,” Jane explains. “The spots and the colors and the amazing patterns that you see on bird eggs are literally painted on the egg! All eggs start white, and then, as they pass through the cloaca and into the canal, pigment is added onto the eggs.” As to the intent of an Ink Dwell mural? Its mission is multifaceted, Thayer explains. “To educate and beautify, to create a real compelling sense of place—but that’s actually the most narrow purpose for these things. It’s really meant to be a platform for so many other things—for broader storytelling, for conversation, for activation and activism.” …Even for product. Pulling up a pant leg, Thayer reveals his kicks. His shoes are embroidered with the blue-footed booby—a marine bird from one of Jane’s past murals that artisan shoe seller Le Mondeur translated into wearable art. At their heart, Ink Dwell murals are “meant to catalyze a love and engagement of the natural world,” Thayer sums up. Jane nods in agreement, “We’re a part of it!” ABOVE: One Thousand Three Hundred Sixty Five Starlings Imagination Gone Wild PHOTOGRAPHY: COURTESY OF INK DWELL
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