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TULIPS _pastel. (Copyright Janai-Ami. All Rights Reserved.) 

One of a handful of paintings completed working alongside many well-known California pastel artists on a Saturday morning at the Ojai California home of renowned 95 year old California pastelist, Alberta (“Bert”) Collins.


PROVENANCE:
(2026) The painting was one of two recently acquired for the permanent California contemporary fine art collection of the Sasse Art Museum located just outside of L.A. The paintings will both be part of traveling exhibitions in the state of California and part of museum catalogs. The artist completed only a few pastels in her lifetime, most of which were worked on alongside of artists she both admired and avidly collected.  In fact, Janai-Ami was a strong supporter of contemporary California artists and a frequent fixture of the California art scene. And the artists in Ojai were her most favorite artists. She referred to this particular group of artists often in her later years as the most welcoming, open-minded, kind and gifted artists she had ever met in the U.S. and abroad. In fact she so loved the art and artists of the area that there are many stories surrounding her contributions not just to the community with donations of her own art to charitable causes she held dear*,  but she also contributed in many ways both seen and unseen to individual artists in need - often by quietly steering her own buyers to a fellow artist instead, steering art commissions and other opportunities to fellow artists in need, or simply a purchase to see another through hard times.  When one artist in her nineties was feeling blue having not had a single collector stop by her home during an Ojai Artists' Studio Tour,  the story often told is that the artist went to that artist's home the next morning. And instead of buying one painting or drawing, she told the artist she couldn't choose so instead she purchased every single drawing in the artist's collection. Bert Collins was relating the story to a group of artists about what had happened and the impact it had on an artist named Marta. Only then did all the artists who were gathered in Bert's home in Meiners Oaks realize that one artist present remained uncharacteristically silent in a corner, just smiling. It was artist Janai-Ami. 

 

The work of this artist is not just a beautiful addition to the Museum's Permanent collection, but a fitting tribute as well to a woman who during her lifetime cared deeply about the arts and about other artists. 

PROVENANCE: 

May 2026: Permanent Collection

Sasse Art Museum 

 

* [According to records, THE EMERALD FOREST was donated to a charity auction run by Grant Associates in Beverly Hills to raise money for The Wellness Foundation (supports families of cancer patients); original framed photographs of animals were donated to The Bob Barker Charity for Animals in need] See charitable donations for additional information