Imagine Jan Dorion Whitney at age four: her head bent over, brown eyes nearly squeezed shut in concentration, dabbing paint onto a page. Her intensity could melt the goo on her tot-size brush. A glimpse of her at age seven would show her at the miniature easel she begged her parents to buy for her. A small black beret hides half her head of wavy red hair. A tiny mustache is painted on her upper lip, the self-imposed trademarks of an artist. Focus the mind’s camera on Jan at age thirteen, and it produces a Polaroid of her in a mechanical drawing class at Las Cruces, New Mexico High School. She is one of only two girls in a group of nearly thirty boys. Jan is not there for adolescent romance; she wants to sharpen her artistic perspective and sense of proportion. Flash forward to today. Jan, now fifty-one, still has a brush in her hand and paints every day. “I always wanted to paint,” she declares. “I’m one of those people who knew when I was four years old that this is what I wanted to do.”

Story By Harriet Howard Heithaus Artwork Courtesy of Jan Dorion Whitney Photography by Donald Clark Fonger Subscribe Now Visit the Claire Murray Site "I love the good old boys, : Matisse, Cezanne, Gaugin and van Gogh," she declaires speaking of them as if they are favorite uncles. "They inspire me, and life inspires me."