Jan Welch

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Portrait of Jan Welch by Jon Elliott (c) 2003.
Portrait of Jan Welch by Jon Elliott (c) 2003.

Jan Eric Welch (born on December 27, 1975), is a popular American director of aggressive skating videos and commercials. He is also a freelance journalist and a SXSW Interactive Media Award winning designer.

Contents

[edit] Career

Jan Welch started his aggressive skating career in 1991. He travelled and skated throughout the state and the rest of the southwest. Through these travels, he met and inspired many of the key players who built a foundation for their sport during its infancy. Jan had a vision to unify the unorganized lesser-known factions within the sport through the creation of Scum Magazine. Only two years after starting Scum, it became a global phenomenon that encompassed aggressive skating, its lifestyle, music and art. This magazine brought many unknown skaters during the '90s into the spotlight, through the web and its print publication that lasted from 1995-1999.

In 1999 Jan was offered a position to build a web site for Daily Bread Magazine and went on two create two videos for them, entitled Quatro and No One's Children.

He attended the University of Texas in Austin to study architectural engineering, before moving on to film and advertising and subsequently dropping out. Jan obtained an associates degree in Printing Managament from Austin Community College.

In 2002 Jan Welch and professional aggressive skaters Jon Elliott and Brian Shima started a distribution company called Rat Tail. Rat Tail was to be the foundation of a collective that now includes some well known companies in aggressive skating. These are 4x4 Urethane, Vicious Bearings and Ground Control. As is the case with most skater-owned companies, it has been mired in controversy from the beginning and has failed to gain significant traction.

In 2005 Leading the Blind won Video of the Year from the French blog Pello Mag.

[edit] Personal life

Jan Welch was born in Austin, Texas, and raised in Freiburg, Germany. His father was Eric Welch, who was a political consultant in Texas in charge of running campaigns for US Senate, Congress, the Texas Supreme Court and countless judicial and legislative elections. His mother, Bettina Welch, was the personal physical therapist for many of the Texas political elite, including Lady Bird Johnson, President LBJ's widow, and Liz Carpenter, LBJ's press spokeswoman and executive assistant as well as an artist specializing weaving. Mrs. Welch also specializes in museum quality restoration of antique rugs, tapestries and clothing. She comes from a long line of German artists including her uncle Dieter Lange who was a well renowned German illustrator whose work included numerous children's Pixi books, board games for Ravensburger, as well as illustrations for the political magazines Die Zeit and Der Spiegel. Her grandfather was a university art professor in the former German state of Western Pomerania, now part of Poland. All of his oil paintings from prior to World War II were confiscated by Polish and Russian interests and never seen again. Due to his family's post-war refugee status he was never able to afford to paint in oils again, instead focusing on water color. Jan's German grandfather Wilhelm Urban was a prisoner of Russia during World War II and his American grandfather, Thomas Irwin Welch, of the Seventh Army was also a prisoner of war and was captured in Belgium on January 9, 1945 by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge. After the war he went on to run the family business, the Welch Grain Company in Dalhart, Texas, which still has major grain storage facilities across the Texas Panhandle.

[edit] Filmography - director/producer/editor/filmer

[edit] Filmography - director/editor/filmer

[edit] Filmography filmer

[edit] Appeared in the following videos as a skater

[edit] Journalist

Has contributed to the following magazines:

  • Inline Magazine (Germany) out of business
  • Flavor BMX Magazine (U.S.A.) out of business
  • Crazy Roller Magazine (France) out of business
  • Scum Magazine [U.S.A]
  • Be-mag (Austria)
  • Daily Bread (U.S.A)out of business

[edit] Notable awards

  • 1999 - South by Southwest - Best Recreational/Hobby/Sport Site for Scum Magazine
  • 2005 - Video of the Year for Leading the Blind from the French Pello Awards

[edit] Interviews

[edit] Resources and links