Emil Gottfred Janel was born in the village of Hansjö near
Orsa in
Dalarna County,
Sweden. In 1923, Janel moved to
Canada, then to
Seattle. After some encouragement by a local store keeper, he eventually settled in
San Francisco with his wife and began study at what is now the
San Francisco Art Institute. During the 1930s, he spent considerable time at
Russian River, where he produced carvings of a local species of
Alder wood. It is said that he preferred that particular medium because of the similarity to flesh tones, and that he kept his carvings in a bucket of water to keep them wet while working on them. He used very thin
aniline dyes on the non-flesh portions of his carvings. Emil is said to have referred to his style as "exaggerated realism". {{cite web ==Honors==