Jan Wesley Obituary

Judith Ann Wesley slipped the surly bonds of earth on March 2, 2025, with friends and family at her side. Whether she was jumping out of airplanes, backpacking across Europe, or reading poetry on a rooftop, Jan was a radiant presence who hurtled fearlessly through her 75 years on earth and ultimately could not be bound by something as pedestrian as gravity.

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Jan was born in New York City on February 1, 1950, the daughter of journalist David Wesley and Life magazine photographer Marie Hansen. She spent her childhood in York, Pennsylvania before moving with her family to Los Angeles at the age of 15. She graduated from Westridge School in Pasadena in 1968 and the California Institute of the Arts in 1974, earning a BFA in film and theater. For over 20 years she worked as an editor in the film industry, then turned to writing and teaching in her fifties. In her prolific second chapter she earned an MFA from Vermont College and authored three books of poetry: Living in Freefall (2012), Only So Much (2022), and It Wasn’t Always Like This (forthcoming). She was also an adjunct professor of poetry at University of Redlands and a writing instructor at FIDM in Los Angeles. An accomplished photographer and visual artist, she channeled her father’s political activism and her mother’s discerning eye into a singular body of work, exploring themes of love, injustice, the body, and the earth.

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The great love of Jan’s life was skydiving. With over a thousand jumps in her logbook, she was happiest in the luminous blue of distant space, where she now gets to glide forever.

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Jan is survived by her stepmother, Deborah Wesley, and a community of devoted friends, cousins, writers, and daredevils. A private service will be held in the spring. In lieu of flowers, please honor Jan’s memory by making art.