by Karen Bridson-Boyczuk

30 years of art & design... and there's nothing Jane Hall likes better

Ordered onto months of bed rest after breaking her leg in three places, Jane Hall was not amused.

A workaholic artist and designer always on the lookout for the next challenge, Hall found it hard to slow down and take it easy.

That was, at least, until she discovered how to almost keep up with her usual pace while propped up with pillows in her bedroom in her Danforth and Greenwood avenues-area home. "I'm sitting in my bed with my laptop, photographs and fabric all over and sketch pads," the award-winning artist and designer says over the phone in January, more than six months after she fell on a staircase, requiring complete rest to avoid surgery. "I'm just getting back on my feet now."

Not long into the conversation, it's clear Hall's convalescence hasn't slowed her down at all. "I'm obsessed," Hall says, describing how she's been up until the wee hours of the morning for days because she's in what she calls the 'creative zone.'

"I'm a workaholic," she says. "I'm trying to curtail that because my body has really been putting up a fuss. And I normally am doing that but I accomplish a lot when I get into the zone. And there's nothing I like better. I wouldn't have been doing what I do for the past 30 years if I didn't."

And what a 30 years it has been. From launching her own million-dollar accessory business as a single mother of three, to designing award-winning murals and packages for companies like Second Cup and Nestle, to creating a home furnishings line in the United States, Hall has been keeping busy.

A well known interior designer, Hall also ran the hugely successful Jane Hall: The Voice of Colour home décor store until three years ago.

"My partner and I (both in life and business) split up and I was the designer and not the administrator so I've decided now to focus on other things," Hall says of the end of the store.

Never one to let hardship stand in her way, Hall rallied and one of her new projects is upgrading her website to be a full-scale online marketplace. "I'm doing it by colour group, I've got custom-made shades, amazing cushionsŠ," she says. "I've got over $100,000 in fabric already made into product."

Hall designs everything from paint to rooms to strollers to hand-painted chairs that stand on their own as works of art. "I'm famous for my chairs ever since they were featured on the TV show The Designer Guys," she says.

As for Hall's style, she says it's as colourful as she is. "I'm known as probably one of the top colourists in Canada," she says. "I know how to put colour together. My style is dramatic, warm, friendly, powerful. I like to use texture. I am a texture junkie. It's rich, opulent, bohemianŠ anything but a beige, boring box."
Currently, Hall's online designs are categorized into five groups according to mood. Paintings, chairs, bedding, rugs, lighting and more can be found in Power, Elegance, Simplicity, Warmth or Tranquility.

"Everything is custom-made and it's not something that you will see anywhere else," she says.

Hall's amazing life story begins on a Blackfoot First Nation reserve in Alberta, where she was the first Caucasian child to be born in 1952. "The Indian chief's wife thought I'd been bathed in milk," she says. In fact, Hall was told the chief's wife offered to trade her own baby boy named Spotted Eagle and a bag of magic powder for her.

"In the end I was named an honorary Blackfoot Indian princess," says Hall, whose parents were on the reserve helping to build schools.

As a child, Hall says she always wanted to be an artist. She spent a lot of time in her room reading and in high school started art classes in earnest. She studied fine art at McMaster and Guelph universities and got married before starting her first business at the age of 23.

With a five-year-old and twin three-year-olds, Hall became a single mother. Unfazed, Hall began taking her creations to trade shows and ultimately created a million-dollar firm out of her accessory business at the age of 34. "From there I started doing more art, then package design," says Hall. "Then people started asking me to do their houses. People used to come in and go wild over my loft and they said I had to open up a home décor store." The store she ultimately opened won three awards, including the ARC Achievement in Retail Concepts Award in 2002.

Since then, more of Hall's time has been focused on interior design. "One of the other services I provide is a shopping service," she says. "I can take you shopping in other people's stores and you can do a room for $2,000 or $20,000, depending on what your budget is. I took one client to Vaughan Mall and we spent five hours and $4,000 and redid a home to stage it for sale. You should see what that house looks like now."