Joan was born in Pittsburgh, PA and currently lives in Denver, CO. She holds a BFA in Illustration from Ringling College of Art & Design and an MA in Fine Arts from Regis University. She is a realism artist who specializes in creating art that celebrates three-dimensional form, textures, mood, character, and authentic details. She practices as a painter and an Interpretive Illustrator, creating exhibits, utilizing various mediums such as paint, fabric, wood, foam, and acrylic, depending on the project. Her paintings explore the culture of metaphoric and symbolic still-lifes. Each element within her compositions is carefully selected, positioned, and lit to convey a unique story of life.
Joan states that she believes that art students must achieve specific levels of measurable success and she teaches specific methods to facilitate this. Her years of experience taught her that students will learn better when they follow clear instructions that include defined expectations and the result allows them to meet a specific standard. In order to delineate the areas of choices that can be made within method parameters, she presents seven common components of two-dimensional surface expression: Motivation, Compositions, Shapes, Tonal contrasts, Brushwork, Lines or edges of shapes and Color. While the methods and techniques are challenging, problem-solving practice is accomplished by including an active theme, inspiring esthetic artistry.
She enjoys fostering an interaction with online students, many of whom respond back to feedback with confirmation and sometimes additional questions. At the start of her teaching career in the online classroom, she took the role of consultant but then witnessed the eagerness of the student wanting to learn more, and began a more active role in teaching the individual, mainly through feedback and assignment markup/demonstration. She is careful to take the role of a guide, explaining processes while encouraging students to apply the principles to the assignments themselves.
Joan lives with her husband and an array of pets which were mostly acquired when her grown children started lives of their own. She is an avid bird and wildlife watcher, and enjoys gardening. Along with painting, her family is her world.
Recent Exhibitions, Significant Work, or Publications:
2023 Guest Scenic Painter, Lone Tree Arts Center, CO 2023 Center for the Arts Evergreen, CO 50th Annual WaterMedia Juried Exhibit 2023 R Gallery, Boulder, CO, Juried Exhibit 2023 Valkyrie Gallery, CO, Invitational Group Exhibit 2022 Religious Statue Restoration, Golden, CO 2022 CMA, Pennsylvania, Juried Exhibit Group Exhibit 2022 Art of the West Gallery, CO Juried Exhibit Group Exhibit 2022 CMA, Pennsylvania, Juried Exhibit Group Exhibit 2022 Valkyrie Gallery, Denver, Invitational Group Exhibit 2021 Art Students League, Denver, Juried Exhibit, Group Exhibit 2021 Valkyrie Gallery, Denver, Invitational Group Exhibit 2019 RMCAD All Faculty/Staff Exhibit 2018 Dioramas and Interactive display design, TECH 2o, El Paso, TX 2015 Dioramas and Interactive display design, University of Wyoming Anthropological Research Center, Laramie, WY.
Course Credentialing
ART 1140 – Painting I, ART 2100 Professional Practice Survey: Voice + Vision (formerly ART 2000 – Fine Arts Sophomore Portfolio Review), ART 2240 – Painting II, ART 3240 – Painting III, ART 3301 – Special Topics in Fine Arts, ART 3601 – Fine Arts Internship Part I, ART 3602 – Fine Arts Internship Part II, ART 4740 – Painting Advanced Studio, FD 1120 – Topics in Color, FD 1370 – Life Drawing I, FD 1380 – Life Drawing II, FD 1600 – Studio Seminar: Methods of Inquiry, FD 2510 – Special Topics
