Welcome to South African Bears

Janet’s designs mostly range between 6 and 18 inches. “To challenge myself, I occasionally make miniature bears or bears larger than 18 inches however I find that the 6 inches to 18 inches range suits my style best as I am able to create the most expressive faces for those bears.” Janet says.

Janet describes her bears as soulful creations, with gentle cub-like faces that speak to the heart. Her bears have large dark eyes with airbrushed features applied to their faces and paws. “The airbrushing seems to add another dimension to their faces and brings them to life.” she adds. Janet started applying these airbrushed features early on in her bear making career as it was a form of painting. Today it has become one of her trademarks, making her bears recognizable as Changle Bears.

persistent and would not take ‘no’ for an answer. She gave Janet a pattern with instructions to try out and in 1996 Janet’s first bear was born. “It was made out of horrible acrylic fur, the only thing I could find at the time. It was used for coat collars. I felt quite proud of myself, presented it to my daughter and then decided I should make another one, which then became another one, and another one and yet another one. The bug had truly bitten.” Janet tells.

With Janet’s enthusiasm for bear artistry on the increase and the lack of bear patterns available to her locally, she decided to put her artistic talent to good use and started designing her own bears and Changle Bears was born.

Janet also discovered teddy bear magazines very early on in her teddy bear making career. These magazines proved to be very useful and helped her in sourcing the wonderful mohair and alpaca fabrics she uses to make her wonderful designs today.

It was in South Africa where Janet met and married Wayne, her husband of currently 15 years. “Wayne, a second generation South African born Chinese is an attorney with his own practice” Janet tells. “When I met and married Wayne he had custody of his three children from a previous marriage and I had two. The five of them ranged from 12 years old down to 6 years old”. Two years later Wayne and Janet had a little one of their own, Alana who is currently 13 years old. “Three of our 6 children still live at home and in between raising six kids I also had my parents-in-law and my father living with us for nearly eight years too! And as if we needed a bigger family we also have two dogs, Lucia a long haired dachshund and Fudge a Norfolk terrier”, Janet remarks.

With 6 young children at home Janet decided to give up her 15 year career in management to be there for the children. It was around this time that a friend from Johannesburg introduced her to an adorable little acrylic bear, which she had made. “I was enchanted, asking her lots of questions as to how she had made it. The end result was, she challenged me to make one too!” Janet exclaims.

Janet was very reluctant to take on what seemed to be such a huge challenge. Janet’s mother was an excellent seamstress, but as a child sewing never really appealed to Janet as she much rather expressed herself artistically with pencil, paints and paper and even won several national art awards during her school career. “Sadly I never pursued art as a career, but have always enjoyed it as a hobby”, Janet adds. Although Janet inherited her mum’s beloved and well used sewing machine, Janet couldn’t sew, but her friend was

“All Changle Bears have shiny waxed noses, their bodies are never overstuffed and are weighted with pellets, encouraging people to hug and cuddle them as soon as they are picked up. They are certainly little friends, always there to give comfort whenever they are needed”, Janet says. Most Changle Bears are one-of-a-kind creations, each accompanied by a signed swing tag which also lists details such as the bear’s name, edition as well as materials used.

Janet’s wonderful cuddly creations have won several awards and the highlight of these for Janet was winning a British Bear Artist Award in 2000 for a bear entered into the 12 to 15 inch category as well receiving a nomination for another bear in a different category. In 2002 Janet was once again nominated for the British Bear Artist Awards and in 2004 received a nomination for the Teddy Bear Scene Readers Choice Awards.

Over the years Janet’s creations appeared in many books and teddy bear magazines. She has also worked on many commissions for private collectors. “One of the most interesting was a commission for the car manufacturer Daimler Chrysler South Africa who requested a special bear for their German director Prof. Hubbert’s sixtieth birthday, Prof. Hubbert being a bear collector. His bear was flown all the way to Germany to be presented by the South African team at his special birthday party” Janet recalls.

Janet concludes “Bear-making is first and foremost a passion. I have been incredibly blessed to be able to do something I love for a living. Many people do not realize how much hard work goes into being a bear artist. It’s not just about designing and making the bears, it is also being your own secretary, manager, promoter and tea girl!”

“As an artist I believe that one’s work should continuously grow and evolve else you are not a true artist. I feel that you should always be challenging yourself and try new things all the time. I would love to continue for many years to come to make bears and travel all over the world, meet more interesting and special people, collectors and artists involved in this fascinating world of the teddy bear”.

[ Article by Ilze Linssen ]