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(the following are excerpts from an Article published in "Arts and Culture Magazine" Sarasota Edition)

JAN SPANGLER (photo by Salvatore Brancifort)
Jan Spangler always has a tickle up her sleeve.  The lilt in her voice radiates as she picks up the telephone, and her gracious giggle is an evidentiary clue that this cartoonist defines joy when it comes to life.  “I’m a cartoon character myself,” she chuckles.  Out of her entire collection of illustrated characters spanning the last 15 years, only one has she copyrighted:  Survivor Girl, the illustrated version of herself.  “I was always a doodler,” she explains.  “When I wasn’t on horseback, I was doodling funny notes to people.  They began asking me to create things like invitations and fliers.” ……………..Perhaps because Spangler is such a colorful persona herself, all of her illustrated characters have very marked personalities…….“Survivor Girl is me,” she explains.  She popped a bottle of champagne for July 7, the five year anniversary for the double mastectomy that placed her into the 82nd percentile of women who have survived five years of breast cancer.  “The women in my family were gobbled up by cancer,” she says……., so I always lived life as if it were in fast forward.  That habit I picked up as a young woman has created quite a bit of drama, but life is never boring!”

     The watercolor doodles of the Survivor Girl series are all personal thoughts of Spangler’s on a particular day during the cancer.  On a whim, she set them out at a small, North Carolina art show, just to see if she would get a response.  Serendipitously, representatives from the American Cancer Society  were present, and urged Spangler to copyright the cards.  …….No one was more shocked than the artist herself when hospitals began snatching them up, and her in-box was chock full of e-mails from patients whom she had touched with her encouraging cards.  “It is a privilege to uplift others with the SG motto:  be brave, have faith and think positive,” she says.  

“When Life throws you a curve – learn to swerve!” 

 

(the following are excerpts -- article published about Jan in Woman to Woman Magazine )

 

Perhaps you’ve seen Survivor Girl, the upbeat cartoon figure who wears a pink dress, dons a red head scarf, and glows.  Sometimes she carries a teddy bear; other times she is dancing.  But she is always positive, trying to comfort and re-energize anyone who meets her.  Exuding love through purple and blue hearts, she shares her joy in the one-liners. 

 

The real Survivor Girl – Jan Spangler, a multi-talented artist, avid equestrian, and surgical nurse, breathed life into the inanimate cartoon a few years ago.  Or maybe the cartoon character has breathed life into Jan.  Jan, a native Sarasota, FL girl, became a cancer survivor in 2005, when a routine mammogram and subsequent biopsy confirmed the disease.  She wasn’t surprised because breast and ovarian cancer had seized many family members in their prime, starting with her grandmother, mother and aunts.  Her sister is a 22-year survivor. 

 

Death and dying were ingrained in Jan’s childhood, and she had resigned herself to a “short but joyous life in which she wouldn’t have to face grey hair, wrinkles, or walkers.”  But she has never given up.  On the contrary, Jan inherited from her mother a fierce determination to protect life’s joy, a fervent faith to look to God for guidance, and a zest for living. 

 

So it was only natural that after the diagnosis Jan sprang into action, marshaling the strongest medical defense; a double mastectomy followed by reconstructive surgery.  She continues to monitor her health but has no time for self-pity, saying:  “Visit the pity pot if you must; don’t make it your throne.”

 

Jan has cartooned other figures, but it’s Survivor Girl and Jan’s spiritual compass that have made the biggest difference in Jan’s life.  Survivor Girl provides boundless opportunities and Jan’s compass points her in the right direction – both giving Jan purpose.  Survivor Girl has touched so many lives and has helped Jan reach so many people that she wouldn’t have met otherwise.  Daily she hears from “e-mail friends” who share their heart-wrenching stories, convey how Survivor Girl has comforted them or renewed their hope, or ask Jan to pray for them. 

 

From the day of her inception, Survivor Girl has helped Jan Thrive.  Add a heaping amount of faith, and you’ll better understand a woman who wonders”  “Who wouldn’t want to be me? “  She believes that she’s been blessed with the greatest husband, children, grandchildren, sisters, and friends.  She’s also convinced that she’s here for a reason and she’s going nowhere until she has completed God’s work.  What can we learn from this extraordinary woman?  Protect life and be brave.  You are not alone.  Find your own “Survivor Girl.” 
Survivor Girl and SurThriver Girl ® are proud members of the National Greeting Card Association!  We will be exhibiting at the 2012 Stationery and Paper Show in New York. 
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