Educator, writer and art gallery owner. This Fresno woman helped preserve area’s history
Janice Stevens was full of achievements, artistic and otherwise.
As an author and historian, she wrote nine books on California locales, including one on the state’s missions, which is now used as a curriculum textbook for fourth-graders. She was also a longtime contributor to The Fresno Bee’s Valley Voices.
As instructor and mentor, Stevens helped hundreds of Valley veterans find their voices and share their stories through the Clovis Adult School older adult program. Those “stories of service” were collected into book form and released in two volumes.
Stevens died June 19 in hospice care at her home in Fresno. She was 78 years old and had been diagnosed with a glioblastoma brain tumor in January.
Stevens had a long history in Fresno’s artistic community.
Two years after moving to Fresno with husband Jim in 1976, Stevens opened the art space Gallery II with best friend Pat Hunter. The two operated the store in a shopping center at Bullard and Minnewawa avenues in Clovis (it was western-themed) before moving to the Fig Tree Plaza at Bullard and West avenues.
Eventually, they landed in a spot on Shaw Avenue between Fruit and West, where they were a mainstay stop on the greater Fresno-area ArtHop tour for years.
Aside from running the business, the pair were collaborators on a series of books chronicling California history. Hunter, an established water colorist, provided the artwork, and Stevens would provide the historical text and stories. The books reflected the importance of Fresno’s sense of place.
They pair did two volumes on the city’s architectural past and another two on renowned local author William Saroyan.
Stevens earned a master’s degree in composition from Fresno State in 1993 and began a career teaching (and often mostly encouraging) others to write; first through the area’s community college system and Clovis Adult School and then eventually through her own weekly classes.
For more than 15 years, she taught a group from the Clovis Veterans Memorial District. Their firsthand experiences became the basis for two books, “Stories of Service, Volume 1 and 2.”
According to her family, Stevens had a unique ability to encourage “non-writer types” and fledgling writers. More than 30 of her students went on to publish memoirs, works of poetry, photography, fiction, non-fiction, self-help and children’s books.
A Celebration of life will be held for Stevens at 11 a.m. July 18 at People’s Church, 7172 N. Cedar Ave. Services will be held in the G. L. Johnson Chapel with a reception to follow. The family asks instead of flowers, donations in Stevens’ name be made to one of her favorite local charities — Heart of the Horse Therapy Ranch, or Hume Lake Christian Camps.
