Joan Muller Artist

23/09/2021

"Come, little leaves," said the Wind one day, "Come to the meadows with me and play. Put on your dresses of red and gold; For Summer is past, and the days grow cold.”
George Cooper

Ellen Ditterbrandt - Seeing is Seeing.

02/03/2021

18/10/2020

“Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know before you learned it.”
Maya Angelou

Janet Fisher

18/10/2020

Julia Kneeland right on cue right? I agree with your suggestion that you and I must MONET at the BMFA again. I didn’t find my tee-shirt from our student trip so many years ago but it could still surface...LOL! The paintings must be seen to be believed (and adored) and I’m very grateful to have had a personal experience of such quality with you.

“Everyone discusses my art and pretends to understand, as if it were necessary to understand, when it is simply necessary to love.”
Claude Monet

Claude Monet - The Boat Studio, 1876.

31/12/2019

The holiday bonfire which warmed me at Old Sturbridge Village a few nights ago brought on a reverie, prompting a quick search of my teaching artifacts when I got home. This collaborative artwork measuring about 6 X 8 feet was the kick-off eighth grade project done by a group of students I met for the first time mid-year when I was hired to replace their art teacher who left unexpectedly. Twenty five years ago! I walked into the art room cold and surveyed my thin resources: a ream of forest green pastel paper, unopened sets of pastels and a name list. I played with ideas to get to know the students better, to get them working as a community and to offer something challenging for every level of capability. Then I happened on an issue of Smithsonian magazine, and a small illustration in it all but tore itself out of the pages for me. That little image (cut into teeny pieces—one for each student—-and labeled with a placement code and up/down orientation arrows) became the stimulus for a twelve-times enlargement. Using coordinate grids in art is a standard tool set with many applications, but the results of these students was simply extraordinary, really expert level. The scene is of a New Year fire-jumping ceremony involving goblins, and (I think) magic beans! I so wish I still had the magazine and details so I could cite the original artist and author of the article it partnered! The mural still captivates me and I offer it to everyone as a gesture of enchantment. Take a leap into 2020!

30/11/2019

From the “nothing new under the sun (or sea)” category come these beings which bear uncanny resemblance to clay fabrications made years ago by my middle school students in response to a mis-matched/exaggerated biology prompt. Jeepers creepers though, who knew truth is completely stranger than the wittiest fiction!

29/11/2019

This is from my personal page, so if you received this in that news feed, bonus thanks to you: “Wishing you a day of chestnuts, pumpkins and sharing your bounty with others. With love, Happy Thanksgiving 🦃”
About the art: This post shows a tiny colored pencil sketch (5x6) I did prior to a full-sized oil version (which I cancelled plans for since I learned what I wanted in the sketch—-part of art is knowing when to cut the bait line if a fish jumps in your lap LOL).

15/11/2019

Seventeen. That was my mom’s forever reference age, the one she continued to feel inside until her body departed; the wonderful thing is that seventeen was also the age she projected even if it was a very wise seventeen. Me? Not seventeen. But 24, yes that would be it, close as I can figure if I could pick. Twenty four and there’s so much more..” Neil Young :)

“Age has no reality except in the physical world. The essence of a human being is resistant to the passage of time. Our inner lives are eternal, which is to say that our spirits remain as youthful and vigorous as when we were in full bloom.”
Gabriel Garcí­a Márquez

Gennady Bodrov - Labourers.

13/11/2019

I’ve been quiet. Up on my hill homestead practicing what I practice, I’m aware I’ve neglected some parts of being a SERIOUS ARTIST—-the public face of it, the promotional energy that takes, and cash flow—-and yet I’m evolving, thriving even, because every day I learn something new or something old more deeply, and just like that my appreciation of life swells another size bigger. That’s all. That’s enough for now. Stay warm.

29/05/2019

I’m so proud of the 40 eight-year olds who stood in the rain with me this morning with their brave little clipboards, cheap paper and stubby pencils—-and doubt. I knew they were nervous, wondering how I believed they could draw realistically all by themselves because they are rightly used to drawing age-appropriate “broccoli” or “lollipop” trees. Small groups of students cycled through my ten-minute station until everyone had a turn, and didn’t receive a lesson in drawing as much as a lesson in squirrel-mind, growth and branching and observing and reaching. Thank you beautiful, mature oaks for your example (which we x-ray viewed past their new foliage as if they were winter trees, so we could see them from the inside out), which we sketched from the ground up noticing that the crown is a shaped space of air and light that the tree stretches into with spreading limbs. Love my little acorns’ efforts; they truly did these all by themselves—no erasers! But, no more broccoli 🌳 trees either! Adults: you can do this, too!! Reach out any time!