After raising a family and a successful career in higher education, Joan followed her first passion into a second career in fine art. Years of formal training with outstanding contemporary artists have allowed her to develop her own style and individual statement of what she experiences and values.
Whether capturing her figurative subjects in a moment of private contemplation or conveying the magic of evening light across the landscape, Joan’s images glow with light, color and emotion. Her landscapes capture the wide open scenes of the west and she is now looking forward to painting the California coast and it’s exciting new vistas. In both oils and watercolors, her work has captured the attention of the public and fellow artists.
Her award winning paintings have been exhibited in state, national and international competitions.

“For me, art is still about beauty. We respond to beauty, and whether it serves to calm, to delight, or to inspite, beauty is essential. It is an antidote to incendiary talk shows, dystopian, violent movies, and even pandemics. If I can, in my own small way, remind someone that we are surrounded with exquisite beauty if we stop and look, I am gratified.
The natural world and the fellow species that live with us never fail to leave me in awe. What we artists strive for will he, at its very best, still an imitation of the wold we live in. How do we capture the transparency of light through water or the complexity of the human expression? Sometimes I see a scene that lives in my mind, insisting to he painted.
Sometimes, I just have fun and paint a duck.“