Janet grew up in San Antonio and attended Alamo Heights High School. She obtained her BFA in art history from the University of Texas at Austin in 1975, and her MFA in painting from UTSA in 1998.

She is an Associate Professor of Art at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, Texas.  She was recently awarded

I’ve been thirty years on the trail – making marks on a surface in pursuit of South Texas. If I am falling behind, then it’s because of this square peg that I’ve been trying to fit through the round hole that’s the problem. It’s a narrative artist’s quandary: How do you attach contemporary meaning to a life and culture that hardly changes from one century to the next? My solutions are to look for Frost’s road not taken, to rein in nostalgia, and redirect the viewer’s expectations.

I believe it’s possible to appreciate the abstract potential in bovine markings and colors – the soft thud of tawny, umber and sienna, with accents of white and as well, to take joy in the harmonic relationship between separate bands of ultramarine and ochre in the absence of green. In a land that so rarely sees rain, those earth and sky colors marry and produce strange olivaceous offspring.

Finally, consider the trail ride. This strictly 20th century, democratic response to the sport of kings is far from the hot-blooded stratosphere of the show jumping set, or the air-conditioned polo-ponies’ trailers. If Joe the Plumber rides a horse, this is where you’ll find him on a Saturday afternoon. All horseflesh imaginable rubbing elbows so to speak -- nags, thoroughbreds and ponies of all colors: paints, roans, palominos, bays and sorrels. The riders -- men, women and children, come in all classes and customs: professionals and clerks, drug-store and working cowboys, princesses and paupers – everyone mounts up for a meet-up with an equestrian thread and all the interconnectivity one might hope for at the wireless cafe.

Falling behind or moving ahead, I guess I’ll just mosey on down the trail.

Her work is in many private and several corporate collections, including:
Laredo National Bank
Texas A&M International University
The University of Texas at San Antonio
USAA
USAA Life
Valero Energy
Kronkosky Charitable Foundation
The AT&T Center

Janet is also a founder and President of the Board of Directors of the non-profit organization Hecho en Encinal. This organization, located in Encinal, Texas is dedicated to bringing arts and humanities programming and projects to rural South Texas.

She is married to rancher, George Krueger, also of San Antonio and an Alamo Heights alum. She and George have lived on his family's ranch near Encinal, Texas for twenty-six years. Their two children, Will and Kate attend the University of Texas at Austin.

"Rural life is increasingly considered an irrelevant blip on the American cultural screen. The agricultural perspective is rejected as a subject by contemporary artists as sentimental romanticism or reinvented as moribund iconographical markers in a post-modern surrealism. But for those who still live on the land, a daily personal relationship with nature is a concrete reality that goes beyond the understanding of the weekend environmental tourist. Indeed, environmental tourism and recreation are for most people the only remaining means of interpreting nature. Ironically these new routes to "nature" have come to serve as important sources of income for the struggling family farm and ranch."

"My work reflects a marriage not only in the conventional sense, between husband and wife, but a commitment to the land and to the life as well. Ranching and raising a family in South Texas is no picnic at Enchanted Rock. It is not a walk down a discreetly graveled path in the "primitive" area of some state park. It is the long haul down an unpaved road, the drought, the flood and the isolation. It encompasses all the characteristics which modern society mourns as lost: responsibility, commitment, wonder, and peace of mind."

"I like to think of myself as an interpreter between two cultures: a representative of a remnant society that still exists within the larger urban clamor of the American scene. Lately my work has taken a turn for the literary. Suddenly, every thing I see seems to have a certain mythological resonance. I believe it is an appropriate way to take a new look at the old myth that is Texas ranch life."

 

Cow Series:


Cows and Calves
oil on poly, 54x48, inches



Dusty Trail
oil on poly, 48 x 54 inches



Glossies
oil on poly, 40x60 inches



White Cow
oil on poly, 30x55 inches


Trailride Series:


Big Paint
oil on poly, 40 x 60 inches
 

Trailride 1
oil on poly, 32x48 inches



Trailride 2
oil on poly, 32x48 inches



Trailride 3
oil on poly, 32x48 inches



Trailride 4
oil on poly, 32x48 inches