Jan Hart

About The Artist

In 1982, Jan Hart entered the University of Oregon School of Architecture as a graduate student after 18 years as mother and wife. She enrolled in a watercolor class during the first summer and began teaching her fellow students the following year. Since that time she has taught watercolor to over 3000 students.

The wet climate in Seattle finally took its toll and Jan decided to move back to sunshine that reminded her of her southern California roots. She selected New Mexico with the landscapes she so admired in Georgia O'Keeffe's canvases. Española, New Mexico was chosen for its centralized location and in 1993, Jan moved all of her belongings and pets to the high desert.

Jan Hart continues to teach, paint and write from her home and studio at Ranchito San Pedro in Española. She welcomes visiting artists and travelers to her cabins and travels several times a year to teach where she is invited. She has taught 2 - 4 week long sessions every year at nearby Ghost Ranch, naming her watercolor workshops, "On the Trail of O'Keeffe". The Montana Watercolor Society selected Jan as their Watermedia, 2004 Juror / Instructor and she regularly teaches watercolor workshops at Coconino Community College in Flagstaff, Arizona. And at home her regularly scheduled classes continue to fill with eager students.

"Watercolor painting for me was love at first try! With an undergraduate degree in Biology, the scientific part of me loved the pigments and miniature chemical reactions that adding water created on paper. Teaching was natural and has continued long after my graduation from Architecture school and the profession of Architecture."

"I scratched out my living by teaching at nearby community colleges and forays back to the Northwest, where I was known. After a few years I was able to find and secure a former turkey ranch where I could build my dream of teaching, painting and hosting artists. Eventually one of the turkey barns became my teaching studio and the other re-emerged as artist/vacation cabins for rent. My dream became reality."

"Sometimes painting has had to take a backseat to teaching. My creative energies are taken up by my classes and workshops. For this reason, I have learned how to combine my teaching and painting by teaching only what I want to learn as a painter and by starting my paintings as demos in class. I do the same with writing. I write what I teach, what my students ask and what I know. It is all quite an interrelated process."
Jan Hart