About Jane
Jane Dalton is a creativity mentor, expressive arts facilitator, artist, and lifelong educator with nearly four decades of experience helping people of all ages reconnect with their natural ability to create. From young children to adults, she creates welcoming, inclusive spaces where art-making becomes a powerful pathway to confidence, joy, authenticity, and well-being. Her gentle, encouraging approach invites participants to slow down, notice deeply, and express themselves freely, grounded in the belief that everyone is inherently creative. A Professor of Art Education at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Jane holds a Ph.D. in Expressive Arts in Education and an M.F.A. in Textile Design and Weaving, and is a Registered Expressive Arts Consultant Educator (REACE). In 2025, she received the North Carolina Higher Education Art Educator of the Year, and, in 2026 the National Art Education Association Higher Education Art Educator of the Year.
Creativity and well-being are at the heart of my mindful creative practice. For over 35 years, I have engaged in meditation, yoga, and contemplative practices alongside teaching art and maintaining an active studio practice. My work has been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions throughout the United States and is held in private and corporate collections. I also sustain an ongoing expressive arts practice grounded in mindfulness, integrating awareness-based approaches that support presence, reflection, and creative exploration. At the heart of mindful expressive arts practice is a deep attentiveness, where mind, heart, and senses are open and receptive to the present moment, just as it is.
I maintain a fiber arts studio practice and enjoy the process of slow stitching, which creates space in my life for solitude and creativity. Painting with both thread and pigment envelops me in a deeply meditative state. Engaging in the expressive arts is a powerful way I cultivate mindfulness and self-care. I also enjoy visual journaling, writing, poetry, creative movement, and music. Through creative practice and reflection, I aim to find beauty every day, in every moment. Each work is unique, emerging from a deep and personal place within. My process is intuitive, mindful, and soulful.
Education
Ph.D.
Expressive Arts Education
EGS University
Switzerland
In an international community of creatives I explored the many facets of the expressive arts: visual, creative movement, music, drama and writing/poetry and discovered the discipline of helping and healing that uses the arts as its basis for discovery and change.
M.F.A Textile Design & Weaving
Rochester Institute of Technology
New York
I took a beginning weaving class as an undergraduate and the passion took hold. Today I practice and teach a variety of “slow” textiles techniques:weaving, surface design, embroidery, spinning, and felting.
R.E.A.C.E.
(Registered Expressive Arts
Educator/Consultant)
International Expressive Arts Association
The expressive arts are about reclaiming our innate capacity as human beings to be creative. I applied to become a Registered Expressive Arts Consultant/Educator through the International Expressive Arts Association to support healing and creative expression
