Jania Vanderwerff was born in Bellingham, WA and grew up near rural Wiser Lake.

Her interest in painting began as a child and was encouraged by her parents.
Her mother introduced her to various media before Jania found her visual language in painting.
Her father taught her to stretch canvas.
He also handcrafted her 1st easel when she was about 12 yrs old.
Naturally, she is self taught and exposed herself to the Masters through books.

While raising and teaching her 4 children she continued to create
and showed them the wonder of museums and galleries.
During this period, her work consisted of painting murals on their nursery walls and helping them learn to make their own works on paper.

On September 11, 2001 Jania began to process the horrible event into her sketchbook.
Thoughts and images spilled onto the paper and eventually became a 12”x12” oil painting.
Her painting “Refuge” was one of 300 displayed in a world wide juried exhibit in New York.
5 years later, it was included in a smaller show of 30 images in Manhattan.

Her work is in permanent and private collections.

Jania lives and works in a space she designed nestled between the Chuckanut mountains and Bellingham Bay in Washington State.