Artist Statements

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JoAnne’s Answers to Meagan’s Questions

August 2015   Q: How and when did you decide to become an artist?      I’ve always been an artist. I can remember playing with papier mache when I was three or four years old and loving it.   Q: Growing up, which artists/types of art interested you?    My parents gave me an oil… read more

Sometimes I Paint Like Crazy

The question that spurs my work is: Why is a woman’s passion so threatening? At the heart of anything I create, in ways obvious and not so obvious, is my effort to come to terms with my own hungers, my own aliveness. Through my art and poetry I aim to ignite in others their own… read more

Why I Never Got My MFA

Many years ago now, I was three quarters of the way through an MFA program when I quit. I’m a person who completes Everything—compulsive, a little bit of a control freak? check. So this was a bit out of character.   Undergraduate vs: Graduate   Unlike with undergraduate courses where you enter an area of… read more

The Good News, the Bad News, and the Best News About Being an Artist

The Good News   When I was a kid there were ads on matchbook covers, or in the back of women’s magazines that read DRAW THIS. Then you would send in your drawing to the address in the ad to see if you had talent. I made my drawing and sent it in.   One day… read more

A Living Book

The Issue of Safety From an extremely young age, girls are told that they are not safe in the world. This message is reinforced in countless ways through the media, social interactions, school curricula, workplace protocols, and family dynamics. These messages come in many guises: stories about rape, stories about shaming due to difference or… read more

Velazquez’s Las Meninas and Mis Meninas — My Letter to Danielle

Hi Danielle,    I’ve been fascinated by the painting Las Meninas since I was a little girl. The Infanta is such a magnetic figure. Everything in the painting seems to turn around her. She is perfectly placed—secure in her own brilliance.    The reason why I chose to re-paint Velazquez‘s Las Meninas was to put myself at… read more

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