Fiber Arts, Mixed Media, Photography, Sculpture
JoAnn started shooting photos on a Graflex 4x5 Large Format Press Camera in the 1960s. Her father was a photographer by trade having learned the skill while serving in the Army during WWII, then continued doing the work professionally as a civilian for the Army and shot weddings et al as a sideline on the weekends. When JoAnn was 15, he gave her a Argus Argoflex Seventy-Five Twin Reflex camera and it was on that camera that she shot the first photo that she developed in a darkroom, i.e., Hingham, Massachusetts. The original is old and certainly faded but it was her beginning and she still has that camera. *** After focusing on the skills of a lapidary and metal-smithing along with working as a pottery studio assistant, JoAnn graduated from college with a degree in fine arts. Over the years, she has worked in textiles, fiber, clay, metal, and stone but recently she has focused her attention on finding different objects and infusing them with positive energy through her colorful uplifting designs.
Artist Statement
With a sight that gratitude brings and an awareness that perfection is over-rated, I embrace discarded worn items and cover them with the colors of an abundant energy that resides within me.
It is the beacon that I follow to quiet my mind as I work on pattern sequences and I cannot stop until each similar pattern is completed. Like focused meditation, I find an intimate silence as the ink flows from the pen or the paint slides off the brush.
- JoAnn Teel
JoAnn's work can be found at the Arts By the Bay Gallery
