A studio visit and conversation with painter Christine Joy in Oregon wine country, fall 2021.
One of the most prolific artists I know, Christine Joy paints the glorious Pacific Northwest from her rustic studio in Oregon wine country. Since meeting her at an art fair in 2018, I’ve loved and respected Christine’s jubilant daily devotion to craft—and her work pays off: the paintings just keep getting stronger.
During our visit in fall 2021, she showed me her essential equipment for painting indoors and out, showed us evidence of her killer chops in the brushworks, reminded me that painting first thing in the morning is a fabulous way to live, and explained how she uses flowers to experiment with new techniques. (And—bonus!—we discovered she borrowed a favorite art book from me way back in the beforetimes.)
Find her work here: https://www.christinejoypaintings.me
INTO A STUDY: UPDATE
My collaborator, developmental psychologist Jen Drake (CUNY Brooklyn College), and I have closed our gallery show and data collection. (Big thanks to CCC’s Royal Nebeker Art Gallery in Astoria, Ore.) We’re going over the data with intent to write up any results we find in the coming months. Stay tuned for details. Until then, here’s our reasoning for collaborating across the art/science divide:
People everywhere make art. Through infinite combinations in various media, the art we make shows what matters to us. We represent God through it; we give shape to political passions and impel others to take action. Art helps us sense the wisdom of others, too. It changes how we sense and comprehend our world.
Our exhibit, INTO A STUDY, is a place of discovery that centers on you. Through each of these paintings, we are trying to communicate something, but the art happens when you complete that communication loop, adding your point of view to a set of recorded responses that, taken together, will inform our understanding of how people experience art in a gallery setting.
These paintings are the visible trace of two minds arguing, then coming to agreement, across the gulf between art and science. We’re practicing both art and science at the same time, blending them in a new way toward a common goal.
With your help, we’ll be able to learn about how art functions in the real world. These findings will inform new research and accelerate collaborations between artists and researchers.
About my work:
Moving bodies are my subject, even if I’m painting a still life. I love to study athletes and other kinds of dancers (everyone is a dancer) twisting their muscles around their bones. And while I do that, I’m thinking about you, the viewer. You’re moving right now, at least a little.
Lately I’ve been preparing plywood surfaces to paint, in the shape of a curtain, maybe a hammock or chain-link fence. The combination of shiny oil paint and gold leaf on undulating 3-D surfaces hopefully leads you to dance a little, stepping close to see the brushwork, back again to enjoy the illusion, then to the side to see what’s hidden in a fold of plywood or the glint of gold leaf shining against the wall.
My route to painting like this has been full of tight turns and continuing education.
In early adulthood I danced ballet wherever I could. I gave myself a daily barre at sea on an aircraft carrier after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy. With a dissertation on combat art and the Iraq war, I received my Ph.D. in cultural studies from Purdue University in 2011. That year I took my studio painting practice to Portland, Oregon. More recently I’ve studied plein-air painting in Virginia and etching with masters in Italy. My recent solo shows include Ford Gallery, the Oregon Military Museum and several college and university galleries, and I’ve done group shows at great places like the Gay Street Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution.
