story by Lindsay Humphrey
Originally hailing from Kalispell, Montana, Janice Aaragon is a cowgirl through and through. She’s still an avid barrel racer, but most of her time is spent being the NMRA secretary and creating works of art on stained glass. “I was an education major with a minor in art at college and I decided to take a stained-glass class,” said the now retired teacher. “I do hummingbirds and flowers and all that kind of stuff, but my real passion is creating horses, and anything related to rodeo.” Most of Janice’s pieces are commissions from rodeo competitors. “Usually, people will send me a photo of what they want and then I have to match up the different colors of glass to match the picture. Stained glass isn’t a hard thing to do, you just have to be precise.”
Janice wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s a perfectionist, but she has been known to rework pieces several times if they aren’t just right. “I’m not sure if anybody else would even notice what sticks out to me, but if something isn’t right then it’s glaringly obvious to me.” Perhaps this attention to detail is why Janice has been the NMRA secretary for more than ten years now. “When I first got involved with the NMRA I was living in New Mexico and still competing. I had been a secretary in high school for Idaho and then, later, in Colorado as well. When the position came open in 2005, I decided to apply for it.” Janice moved to Mineola, Texas, which meant she had to resign from her position. She only got away with that for a couple of years before the NMRA asked her to come back as the secretary again.
“I do the job remotely from Texas most of the time, but then I go over there for some of their bigger events. I really enjoy interacting with all the contestants and people of rodeo; they’re a special brand.” Janice didn’t grow up in rodeo in Big Sky country, but she did spend quite a bit of time showing horses in 4-H. Although she no longer enters rodeos on the clover leaf pattern, she’s still a regular at open jackpots and NBHA events. “We [the NMRA] have a wonderful group of contestants and directors who are working hard to keep the association going. COVID has made that job even harder.” Janice and the directors are hopeful more communities in New Mexico will host NMRA events in the coming years as a means to stimulate the economy in that area.
Now fully enjoying retirement, Janice appreciates all the commission work she gets for her stained-glass art. It’s a tedious, time-consuming process but the end product is always worth it. Comparable to a jigsaw puzzle, stained-glass pieces take quite a few steps to complete. “The first step is to draw the pattern. If someone sends me a picture, I’ll blow that up and then go from there. When you’re doing cut lines on a horse, you need to do them along their muscles so they still look like a horse.” Once the pattern is set, Janice makes a copy of it and then cuts out the individual pieces. Each piece is glued to the colored glass and then cut out with a glass cutter.
“Then it’s time to use the grinder to smooth out the edges. Grinding is the most boring part of the whole process for me.” On average, Janice is working with anywhere from 200 to 500 individual pieces. She’s completed a piece that contained more than 1,000. “I’m working on a barrel racer right now with about 200 pieces and it will take me about 20 hours to complete.” The glass puzzle is held together with copper foil, which Janice compares to scotch tape. The foil keeps the pieces together during the soldering process that follows. Both sides get soldered before the piece is framed and then hung in a window to catch the sunlight. Janice is currently taking commissions, and she can be reached at 505-366-4929
