photography – Cre8-Space

JoAnne Meeker, Painter

JoAnne Meeker returns to painting 50 years later!

From Painter to Illustrator to Photographer and back to Painter

JoAnne Meeker, at 60, has the fresh-scrubbed face of a teenager, complete with a freckle-splashed nose and enough youthful ambition to take on oil painting after a professional career as a photographer and advertising agency owner.

JoAnne proves we can reinvent ourselves at any time, as long as we’re willing to study, work hard and make mistakes. She began her training as a painter at the age of 11 in Destin, Florida, with private lessons and her mother’s encouragement.

“I always knew I’d be an artist,” JoAnne says. “And more specifically, a painter.”

Now, she’s picked up brushes again and is seeking her groove.

arizona-tags 9 x 12 — Arizona Tags, 9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

“Learning to paint is like learning a new language,” JoAnne says. “I’m trying different techniques, which often feel awkward, just like learning new words and pronouncing them wrong. People might laugh, but I keep going.”

After attending the University of Kansas School of Fine Art, the Kansas City Art Institute and the Art Institute of Southern California, JoAnne started her career in advertising as an illustrator in her 20s. She moved to California to be in the movie business. When that didn’t pan out, she started her own design agency at the age of 26 and called it “Kaos & Harmony.” Her firm specialized in marketing for the retirement industry.

*Turquoise Beauty*, 35 x 38 inches, oil on canvas

As Art Director, JoAnne would visit retirement communities and scout out photographic locations and angles in advance, so the real photographer could step right in and get to work. Her photographs, shot as prototypes, were actually good enough to be the real thing, so she began photographing more projects for her clients.

In 2001, JoAnne transitioned back into the arts as a fine art photographer. For 15 years, her cutting-edge photography broke new ground in capturing the western lifestyle… because she saw the world through the “eye of a painter.”

Established Western photographers began copying her style!

In 2015, JoAnne transitioned back to her roots as a full-time oil painter. She is studying with renowned Wildlife painter Greg Beecham, Landscape painter Phil Starke and Equine painter Adeline Halvorson.

“When I wanted to get back into painting,” JoAnne says, “an old man told me I’d be miserable and frustrated. He was right. When I started painting again two years ago, it was frustrating. I tried to draw and it was awful. I had to regain eye-hand coordination after doing illustrations with a mouse on a computer my entire career. During my first workshop, I was embarrassed. It’s taken a lot of work and time to find my own style.”

As a natural cartoonist and animator, JoAnne loves to create characters. Her favorite subjects these days, however, are dilapidated trucks left rusting in fields all across the west.

stolen-car 8 x 10 — *Stolen Car*, 8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

“I used to paint portraits of people and animals,” JoAnne says. “Now I paint portraits of trucks. They’re classics with a life of their own and a unique story to tell. I like to imagine who owned each truck, where they lived and how they ended up abandoning the truck.”

JoAnne finds most of the trucks she paints on the road. She divides her time between Dubois, Wyoming, near Yellowstone, and Scottsdale, Arizona. She spent the winter of 2018 in Scottsdale, Arizona, as an artist exhibiting at the Arizona Fine Arts Expo, which runs from mid-January to the end of March every year. This was JoAnne’s first year at the Expo and she hopes to return next year.

In Wyoming, JoAnne’s art studio is on the second floor of her house with north-facing windows. She also has a workspace downstairs and a Giclee printer that produces works up to 44 x 90 inches.

When JoAnne retired in the late 90s from her design agency at the age of 40, she went to Europe. In Italy, she rode a horse through a marble mine, the first time she had ever ridden a horse and she was instantly hooked, though her love of horses actually started when she was a child.

A Cape Cod city girl with an air force pilot as a father, JoAnne wanted to be a country girl living on a ranch. Every Christmas she asked for a horse but it just wasn’t practical to own a horse and move so regularly; JoAnne attended 15 elementary schools between the first and sixth grades.

“After riding the horse in Italy, I began wondering how I could make a living riding a horse,” JoAnne laughs.

She eventually owned a horse and bought her own house in the wild country of Wyoming.

On a trip to a ranch in New Mexico, JoAnne spent a day photographing the branding of the ranch’s cattle. She printed the photos on really big canvases, when folks weren’t doing that yet. Her printed photographs sold well.

blue-bonnet-longhorn — *Blue Bonnet Longhorn*

That’s when she knew the Western lifestyle would be her photographic genre. At art shows in Calgary and Texas, where the oil industry was strong, her work was in high demand. Between 2012 and 2014, oil was doing so great, overnight millionaires were building big houses with lots of wall space to fill with original artwork.

bison 8 x 10 — *Bison*, 8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

FORMAL ART STUDIES

JoAnne received a scholarship at 16 to attend art school. Back then, they used live models, and on her first day, a live male model was on display. She could barely look at him. Later, when she went to art school in 1976-77, she learned about the Law of Chance, as depicted in Jackson Pollack’s method of slinging paint.

“The instructors had students shredding brown paper for two weeks. It was monotonous and didn’t teach us art. When the shredding was done, the fragments were dropped from a high spot and left where they randomly fell. That wasn’t art! I wish they had taught me to paint instead.”

in-the-pen 18 x 24 — *In the Pen*, 18 x 24 inches, oil on canvas

JoAnne believes painting can be taught. Some people may have a natural ability, but it takes practice for everyone.

For aspiring artists in the Phoenix, Arizona, area, JoAnne recommends the Scottsdale Artist School. Students can study with specific artists, according to their preferred genre. Additionally, twice a week they hold an open studio with a hired model and students can sit in and paint or draw.

JoAnne has successfully reinvented her art persona several times. But she also learned that reinvention doesn’t mean reinventing techniques. Learning from others is key.

“During the Expo, I was inspired by the creative environment, and being surrounded by artists of every medium. I welcomed their coaching. And painting every single day helped me advance my skills. Anyone wanting to improve as an artist can’t go wrong by painting every day, being open to suggestions from other artists and actually seeking out the company of other artists.”

reliable - 11 x 14 — *Reliable*, 11 x 14 inches, oil on canvas

JoAnne’s next reinvention of herself? She wants to get into plein air painting, and in a big way. She wants to go to France and Italy and paint plein air like the impressionists.

“I love it when I try to do something and it turns out exactly like I wanted,” JoAnne says.

Awards & Recognition

2016 Feature Poster Artist, San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo
2015 Feature Poster Artist, San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo
2014 Feature Poster Artist, San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo
2014 Best of Show, San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo
2013 Feature Poster Artist, San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo
2013 Commission, 100-page book “The Life is Art – A Photographic Journey of Ranching in Western Alberta”
2012 Feature Poster Artist, San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo
2010 Feature Artist, Rodeo Austin, Texas
2009 Best of Show Artisan, Western Showcase – Calgary Stampede, Alberta Canada

Resources

Website: http://jmeeker.com/

Photo Gallery

sadie-commission 9 x 12 — Commission, 9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA — *Classical Gas*

maastricht 9 x 12 — *Maastricht*, 9 x 12 inches, oil on canvas

brownie-hawkeye 8 x 8 — *Brownie Hawkeye*, 8 x 8 inches, oil on canvas

prickly-pear 8 x 10 — *Prickly Pear*, 8 x 10 inches, oil on canvas

moving-cows 8 x 10 — *Moving Cows*, 8 x 10, oil on canvas

domesticated 24 x 36 — *Domesticated,* 24 x 26 inches, oil on canvas

Christine Hauber, Photographer

Christine is an introvert, and it works very well for her. She’s calm. Centered. No drama. While she relishes her solitude, she doesn’t shy away from being with people. And she gets people. As a portrait photographer, she nails the core of their being in her photographs.

Courageous Christine

In the early 2000s, Christine traveled the byways of America meeting people in villages and communities, documenting their professions by capturing them in their work element. Her book “Working in the USA” is a love letter to working folks, a fascinating study of people ordinary and extraordinary, all the more poignant because she shot each one in black and white.

IMG_3156 (1) — A spread from Christine’s book, “Working in the USA”

I dare you to open her book and try to close it after a few pages. I sure couldn’t. Its width straddled my lap and I turned page after page, unable to stop looking at the next person — a firefighter, a Cajun accordion maker, a gold miner, a shrimper – each with their earnest face surrounded by the tools of their trade. Proud people. Humble people. Dignified.

IMG_3155 (1) — More USA workers photographed by Christine

For an introvert, Christine excelled at traveling in her RV and meeting all kinds of people along the way. She stills lives in that same RV… since 2001. These days, she winters in Scottsdale, Arizona, and summers in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

IMG_3154 (1) — Even more USA workers photographed by Christine from all lower 48 states

From Denver to Daring

Growing up in Denver, Christine enjoyed spending solitary time drawing and coloring when she wasn’t out being “one of the boys” with her two older brothers. From an early age, she was immediately attracted to pencil and charcoal drawings, which formed the basic artistic thread running through her life; producing works in black and white.

Christine also loves animals and had planned to be a veterinarian, until one summer when her mother arranged for her to work on a pig farm in South Dakota. “I realized I didn’t like seeing animals in pain,” Christine says.

These days, she photographs portraits of rescued and protected animals, like donkeys, horses, goats and sheep, and transfers their black and white images onto wood panels that she embellishes with white tissue paper, textures and paint or encaustic.

Christine in her booth at the Arizona Fine Art Expo, transferring a cow print onto canvas

Christine’s animal faces are charming. But photography and mixed media pieces aren’t her only creative outlets. She also cooks. Each winter, she exhibits at the Arizona Fine Art Expo and also runs the Expo Cafe with her assistant, Caroline Kwas, also an exhibiting artist. Together, they prepare breakfast and lunch seven days a week for visitors and resident artists.

Each summer, Christine hosts multiple Art Spas in Santa Fe. While her business partner teaches painting classes, Christine prepares their meals and demonstrates cooking. She focuses on healthy vegetarian foods while explaining the cooking process. In a recent Art Spa, she taught everyone how to create and roll their own spring rolls.

Christine’s Expo gig in Scottsdale goes beyond just showing her art and cooking wholesome foods (which keeps her busy for 80 hours each week). She is also part of the crew that erects the giant u-shaped white tents for the Expo.

The entrance to the Arizona Fine Art Expo

The show launches mid-January and she arrives from Santa Fe in November to get the Expo up and running, along with the show managers and facilities team. When the Expo closed on March 25, Christine spent April leading the crew in dismantling and packing up the massive tent for storage until next year.

During the Expo, Christine stays busy painting, running the cafe and then walking to her RV out back each evening where she continues to make her art.

Many people dream of pulling up roots and following their passion, living an endless summer in mild climates. Christine is doing it, though she admits it’s not as freeing as it might sound. The hours are long, the work hard and the pressure is on to make a living from her art.

“You can do anything for 10 weeks,” Christine laughs. That’s her motto for this year’s Expo.

Christine with her new elk mixed media work

Though her location changes, Christine’s focus on producing art never does. She continually learns from customer feedback, what’s selling and what’s not, to try new things. “I’m always chasing that carrot,” she says, laughing. Making a living from art drives Christine each day to discover new ways to market what she does.

Working in the USA

Christine received her college degree in psychology and worked for a year counseling troubled youth for $6 an hour, which was minimum wage. Working with the kids was fine but after a year, Christine realized her co-workers were the ones with the more severe issues. To compensate for work stress, she took a class on darkroom techniques and promptly fell in love with it.

She also took a couple of pre-med courses for genetic counseling but soon determined speaking with pregnant women about potential baby problems would be too taxing. When her father pointed out how passionate she was about her hobby of photography, and encouraged her to consider turning professional, she took his advice.

Christine chose commercial art photography over her pre-med studies and started her own Portrait studio in Denver. She liked to experiment, to stretch her creative muscles, and worked with infrared film, which plays off of the red spectrum to produce ethereal photos.

For six years, Christine ran her business and also spent two of those years caring for her aged grandmother. Soon, feeling stifled by traditional portraiture and her home life, she longed to follow her creative urges to travel and take pictures.

Always a traveler at heart, Christine had taken solo trips to China, Singapore and Hawaii. She knew her new dream of traveling the U.S. and taking photos was doable, with proper preparation. She talked about her project with a purpose. She dreamed about it. Finally Christine’s dad convinced here there was no time like the present to chase a dream.

Again, she listened to her dad and set her departure date for one year ahead.

Heeding the wanderlust call, Christine bought a 29-foot RV and converted the main bedroom into a compact custom darkroom. In April, she set out to visit all 48 lower U.S. states and photographically document workers of all professions. Her project, called Working in the USA, was a way for Christine to show people in other countries what real Americans look like, as opposed to those seen on TV shows and in movies.

“We’re a nation of diverse people who work hard,” Christine says, “and work is a common theme all over the world. The first thing we ask when meeting someone new is ‘what do you do?’”

For three-and-a-half years, Christine traveled 70,000 miles with her cat Ansel and her dog Gracie. When her travels were over, she worked on producing her book “Working in the USA,” which was published in 2006.

Christine had finally burst out of traditional portrait methods and captured people from all walks of life. Along the way, she learned to avoid tornado alley in May and June, to avoid the north in the winter, to look for free RV lots, to lay low while parking overnight at truck stops and to overcome her natural shyness to approach people and learn their stories. She was traveling before people were actively blogging and before social media provided a platform for instant sharing. She wrote about the people she met, in addition to photographing them, and she still has many stories to tell about the people in her book. I’m looking forward to hearing those stories. And to seeing what Courageous Christine does next.

“There are no excuses to not travel,” Christine says. “Don’t wait for a traveling companion. Don’t wait to pursue any dream. Get out there. You’ll survive.”

Christine should know.

The name of her RV says it all: Dream Catcher.