Lately, Jane Spakowsky has been dreaming of a little cabin in the woods. The self-taught, mixed-media artist, who now lives in Tacoma, grew up on Vashon and envisions a return to a simpler way of life.

By her own account, she was raised “way out in the woods, potty-trained in an outhouse and poor,” but glad for the experience as it shaped her “down-to-earth” character. One of three daughters of Vashon’s beloved and prolific maritime painter Michael Spakowsky, Jane Spakowsky watched her father paint, though she never received training and never imagined herself as an artist. But life has a way of intervening. On Friday, Aug. 5, an exhibit of Jane Spakowsky’s paintings will open at The Hardware Store Restaurant.

“For years, I thought being an artist meant you paint boats or make it look exactly like reality,” she said. “I didn’t paint until 12 years ago. I would compare myself to (my father) and think, ‘I can’t be an artist.'”

But if success in the marketplace is any judge, then Jane Spakowsky is an established artist in her own right. She started painting as a way to make her living while staying at home with her two young children. She noticed someone selling paintings of cats for $50 on eBay and decided she could do the same. She began by painting images of folk art angels.

“I lucked out because whatever painting I put on eBay sold, and I kept getting higher bids,” she said.

She also started seeing copycat versions of her work, which prompted her to get off eBay. She began doing tutorials on YouTube, teaching others to paint using their own style, before establishing a website where she sells her art.

“Gritty Jane’s 10 Lessons on YouTube was an experiment,” she said, “and my following grew. That’s how I got off eBay and then on to my own website. It dawned on me that you can make something and show it not just to your neighbors but to the world. It was coming from an out-in-the-woods to an out-in-the-world mentality. It still blows my mind that you can put an idea out there, share it with tons of people and use it as a business.”

Still, painting holds a deeper meaning for her now than just paying the bills. She credits the practice of painting everyday for a decade for her development as an artist.

The subject of her recent work is women — portraits influenced by her daughter’s features and mixed with imagery of animals and nature.

“I take bits and pieces from reference photos and blend them — the tilt of this person’s head, a bird, a hairdo. I grab the elements and mix them all together.”

The process is therapeutic, she said, like a soul-searching diary. The image is not meant to look like a particular person, but to “express a mood, a fierce determination, a strength, a lost state of mind or a grieving.”

And then there’s the Vashon influence.

“That’s when I talk about animals or nature in my art,” she said. “People and animals mixed together, the half-animal, half-people creatures. I have a deep connection with those elements (from Vashon).”

“Warrior,” pictured to the left, is what the artist considers a breakthrough-painting. It came after a long dry spell when she was not happy with any of her work. It also arrived after the death of her father in 2014, with whom she still feels deeply connected.

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think of him,” she said. “I picture him painting and watching Columbo. Now I do that — listen to an old movie while I am working, and I feel like him. I feel fortunate I can hear him. If I’m in a rut, I used to call him up, and he wouldn’t baby me. He’d say, ‘You better get back to painting.’ Like, ‘Toughen up, Chicky, no moping around, get the paint on the canvas.’ He’d snap me out of my moodiness. Even though he is gone, I can hear him saying, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, start painting.’ That is still there.”

Close to 1,000 of her father’s paintings hang on island walls, and Jane Spakowsky — who never thought she’d be an artist — is carrying her family’s artistic legacy forward with her first-ever gallery exhibit on Vashon.

“This work came out of me after my dad died. It’s a personal thing,” she said. “If I am going to put my work out there, Vashon is my home, and this is where I want to do it. It means a lot to me.”