Artist's Biography

Jan, her husband John, and their labs, Pearl and Sadie, live in Creede, Colorado. Creede is a small former silver mining town nestled in a canyon of the La Garita Mountains in southern Colorado. At sixteen, Jan discovered the pure soft pigment sticks called pastel and has spent the last fifty years creating artwork in her own vibrant, colorful style.

Jan attended the University of Oklahoma where she majored in commercial art. After college, the following sixteen years were spent on the East coast where she married and began raising her family. Jan studied portraiture with Daniel Green at the Art Students League in New York City, was a member of the National Guild of Scientific Illustrators, the Women's Caucus for the Arts as well as several other art societies in the East. After a successful exhibit in the Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center in New York City, she headed back to her beloved West.

Jan's varied career included magazine production in Odessa, Texas, fashion illustration and hospital public relations in El Dorado, Arkansas and jewelry manufacturing in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After fifteen years in the jewelry business Jan and her husband sold the business and “retired” to Creede where they opened the JThompson Gallery and Lovering's Bead Loft. They sold the bead business in 2007 so Jan could hold summer pastel painting workshops above the gallery. Her popular classes are becoming a summer destination for students to enjoy the mountain scenery. Jan's original pastels, cards and prints reflect the beauty of her mountain community and the western way of life. Her award-winning artwork is becoming highly collectible, especially her signed limited edition prints.

Jan is also represented by Wild Spirit Gallery in Pagosa Springs, CO, Mountain Lighthouse and Gallery in South Fork, CO, and Lily's Gallery in Tubac, AZ. Jan's work can also be seen on on the fabulous Bling Jewelry Boxes. Pastel class information is available at info@jthompsongallery.com.