Janet has been influenced since her early childhood days by the forms and colors of the pastoral farm-scapes and rich lake-scapes of her home state of Michigan. However, the impact of her mother’s illness and eventual death with cancer would prove to be her most enormous emotional influence. She studied art history and participated in summer fine art classes at The Cranbrook Institute of Arts as a child. She did volunteer work as a docent at the Detroit Institute of Art while a young student. She was assistant to the 19th Century American Curator at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art while attending college in Los Angeles. Janet did undergrad work in American Art History at the University of Southern California. She is considered an expert and performs as an appraiser of 19th and 20th Century American painting and sculpture.