About Janetta Evins

Come Walk With Me Exhibit on display through April

I was born on a farm about seven miles south and east of St. Francis., in 1923. I lived through the dust storm years and the bad depression years of the 30s.

In those years, people had very little money. They lived with as much simplicity as they could. Those were referred to as “hard times.” And they were, indeed, very hard times to live in.

Because of the drought and the constant blowing of dirt which found its way here all the way from Texas and Oklahoma, this whole area was literally without color. I remember very few trees, nothing but bare and blowing earth. Day after day the dust blew and the skies were so dark we had to light our kerosene lamps in the middle of the day. I believed that I was experiencing what life was. In good years that have followed, I have been in almost constant celebration of the green fields, the trees, water in the river, clean air, successful people who are enjoying life in lovely homes.

Since our lives were so very colorless in my days as a young child, I broke the monotony of it all by drawing pictures and coloring them with crayons, water colors, whatever was available. I was hard-pressed to find anything with enough beauty or shape to copy. I remember time spent on the roof of a chicken house sometimes on top of the windmill with a pencil and paper. 

I began to dream of becoming a famous dress designer in New York City. I spent a great deal of time drawing lovely dresses on glamorous women.

While herding cattle from weed patch to weed patch, I day-dreamed about the career I would have in the future. That was my escape.

I graduated from high school when I was seventeen, then I started teaching in a one-room country school. With my first month’s paycheck, which was $60, I bought a coveted set of oil paints. I fell in love with color and I’ve had a continuous love affair with it ever since.

Becoming an artist was the highest calling of my life. Never one for doing things the way I was told, I have found my own way. My dreams of being a dress designer in New York vanished as I grew older. Through life’s experiences, I found that I was living in a place which had developed through its adversities. A place of infinite richness of spirit. A place with its own inimitable beauty in landscape and in its people.

For many years I have been trying to interpret this country through my art. The many farmsteads I draw are done in an effort to show the courage of our people as they helped build the country that we now enjoy. I hope that they are not just drawings, but that they capture a spiritual quality and somehow tell you of the lives that were lived in and near them, and of the efforts that were put forth by those who have gone before us.

My painted landscapes and portraits satisfy my desire to literally wallow in color. Being an artist is so exciting. It all comes from within myself. Every time I start a new painting, I believe that this is the one that is truly going to come alive. 

I am still convinced that one day it will happen.