Western Colorado artist DJ Janowski has lived/worked in London, New York, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Omaha and Denver. “I thoroughly enjoyed the bright lights and big cities,” she says, “but having grown up on a cattle ranch in the Nebraska Sandhills, I was always a Westerner at heart.” She works in a variety of media, ranging from oils and acrylics to pastels and charcoal. Major influences on her work include Fritz Scholder, Jac Kephart, Clyfford Still, the wabi sabi aesthetic and prehistoric rock art.

Perhaps the greatest influence on her work is her love of the American West -- “big sky country” – and its history. Her family’s first ranch was about 20 miles from Scout’s Rest Ranch, Buffalo Bill Cody’s Nebraska home. He was one of her childhood heroes.

“Our ranch was in a fairly remote area. My Dad always said that if you could see your neighbor’s chimney smoke, they were getting too close,” she says. She grew up riding horses, working cattle, building fence, branding, going to rodeos and driving a tractor. When her great grandparents came West in a covered wagon, they arrived on the Nebraska plains just as winter was setting in, too late to build a sod house. According to family legend, for housing, they dug a hole in the ground and turned the wagon upside down over it. “That was where my great grandmother had her first baby,” says DJ. “To me, that kind of resourcefulness and grit epitomizes the American West.”

“I enjoy painting animals because they have keenly individual personalities, natures and symbolic significance. I aim to capture the essence of each of the creatures I paint. Sometimes it’s fierce, or funny, or cheerful, or sad. You’ll meet a variety of creatures—from a jaunty badger to a calculating wolf—in my menagerie of animal paintings.