Commitment to carving continued to strengthen as she challenged her creativity with each new composition. The simple designs became more complex, the celadon glaze yielded more layers of shading and perceived depth. Janel's work in porcelain received national recognition and awards.

With the ongoing evolution of her work and ideas, some of her carved subjects began to emerge beyond the shallow-relief carving. She felt these were too sculptural for the delicate celadon-glazed carving. Further growth pushed her to consider carving in a three-dimensional format.

At that time she recalled an earlier introduction to netsuke, a wonderfully expressive and complete form of sculpture on an intimate scale.

They suited her pattern of examining small bits of the natural world in her carvings. In 1990 Janel began to carve netsuke and ojime from porcelain as a way to separate and preserve the delicate shallow-relief carving from the boldly emerging three-dimensional imagery. During the next years, shallow-relief carving on porcelain lidded boxes and shallow bowl forms alternated with porcelain netsuke and ojime carvings.