Continental Who's Who

Janet Heinicke

Janet Heinicke, is being recognized by Continental Who’s Who as a Pinnacle Lifetime Achiever in the field of education as a Professor Emeritus.

Inspired by her mother as a young child, Janet Heinicke journeyed with her hard-working mother, a social worker, around eastern Indiana. Her mother always invited her to look and enjoy the world and nature around her. The habit of looking “long” allowed her to carry confidence in observing the seen world into adulthood as she became, first, an itinerant art teacher in a school district in northeastern Indiana, and then a secondary art teacher in suburban Shaker Heights, Cleveland, Ohio, and later a college art professor, first in the Chicago suburbs and later in Iowa.

Janet Heinicke has always had a passion for creating art and subsequently sharing new discoveries she made in her art with her peers. She feeds and cherishes her passion by drawing the seen world first, and then abstracting from that seen world “what’s important objects”, manmade structures, and natural plant materials, sights seen on journeys abroad.

Heinicke continued her exploration of work with poured and stained pigments after marriage and a move to the Chicago area. She soon found herself teaching adult students at Elgin Community College in the adult and evening program. Teaching the “older learner” became an enduring passion. Learning how to do this well led her to undertake a doctoral degree in Higher Education Administration at Northern Illinois University, a degree earned concurrently with an MFA degree in studio work.

Travel has been an important factor in determining her success. Travels have taken her to countries in Southeast Asia, such as China, Japan, Malaysia, And Thailand, and more recently to East Africa, and Eastern Europe. She says she has never been a “tourist” but has often been a “student”, as she chooses to learn new ways of both “seeing” and “doing” wherever she finds herself. A constant theme is always sharing what she has learned with those she meets. These travel experiences constitute a constant mutual learning society.

Dr. Heinike has exhibited her work all across the world in diverse places like Japan, in Tanzania, Ukraine, the former Soviet Union, Russia, and across the United States, where she has created more than a hundred one-person exhibits in venues from New York to Arizona.

Ms. Janet Heinicke dedicates her success in Memory of her mother Mary Hart and in memory of her academic mentor Dr. Margaret Carrol at Northern Illinois University.