Joanna Kaufman

Medium: Watercolor Painting

CREATIVE BEGINNINGS: Sharing paints and brushes on summer visits, Joanna’s grandmother introduced her to painting. She was further inspired by her great aunt, who had a love of long lines and painted earth scenes and stories of family on pottery. Receiving their lineages of visual expression and storytelling made an early impression that later came to life in Joanna’s paintings, storybooks, and narrative scenes.

ARTISTIC PATH: From early studies at the Inter American University of Puerto Rico, Joanna was introduced to the medium of watercolor and she has been inspired by its dynamic and transcendent capacities ever since. She completed undergraduate studies in Spanish, education, and photography at Northern Arizona University and worked as a public educator, bringing creative approaches to language and curriculum development in the classroom. After receiving a multi-book illustration contract, Joanna established a creative studio where her practice deepened at the crossroads of language and visual art. Growth at this nexus led Joanna to attain her MFA in creative writing at Pacific Northwest College of Art of Willamette, where she was awarded a fellowship providing further creative engagement with the Center for Contemporary Art in Portland, Oregon. Today, Joanna’s visual artwork is held in private collections in North America and Japan and in public collections with the City of Portland, Oregon, and the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma.

INSPIRATION AND PROCESS: Joanna’s inspiration comes from continuous study of the intricacies of the natural world and from the inner landscape of the dream. She believes that her primary materials as an artist are those of attention to, and love for, what may be translated to language on the page or to paint on paper. Working from memory as well as direct observation, she brings finely-detailed works to life in a range of sizes and formats, from sequential works for books to expansive works for architectural spaces. The physical materials in her work are those of watercolor, gouache, and egg-tempera applied in fine layers on substrates of paper and gesso board.

LIFE AS A GORGE ARTIST: Joanna’s studio is located in Trout Lake, Washington, near the site of a village called Cranes’ Place for sandhill cranes which nested in wetlands near the base of Mt. Adams, an active stratovolcano in the Pacific Ring of Fire. Amid the continual changes in the land, Joanna is grateful to work from a place where she can bear daily witness to the intricate and storied lives of water and trees, insects and animals. She finds solace working in community with artists, writers, and musicians of the Columbia Gorge region.

HOW TO LEARN MORE:

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