Niagara #4, 2022

Joan Blumenfeld  

I turned to painting several years ago after a successful career as an architect, around the same time that I moved to the Reno/Tahoe area. 

As a kid I was always drawing, painting, making models, little dioramas. I spent many of my teenage week-ends in museums and galleries in NYC and elsewhere; I couldn't get enough of the strange and alien/wonderful worlds they opened up to me. I still get the same thrill from work that makes me think or that surprises me. 

When I paint, my starting point is the wish to get the same response in a viewer as my own spiritual appreciation for whatever I am looking at. I never know exactly where a painting will end up until it is done, because I am always trying new ways to get that, with a fresh look at the thing that interested me in the first place. 

My work is also heavily influenced by my background as an architect; all the same ingredients go into both architecture and painting; perspective, color, form, materiality, and light. When they are most effective, both require a unique and inventive perspective that evokes an emotional response from the viewer, including myself. It is my hope that I am sometimes successful in this.

Education:

Bachelor of Arts, Philosophical Psychology, University of Chicago
Masters of Architecture (MArch), Harvard Graduate School of Design

Relevant Study:
Life Drawing, Donald Judd--Artist in Residence , Dartmouth College
Independent Studies, Harold Rosenberg, University of Chicago
Various Coursework, The Art Students League of New York
Painting Class, E.L. Cord Museum School, Reno, NV
David McCamant Studio, Reno, NV

Professional/Teaching Experience:

Harvard Career Discovery, Graduate School of Design
Introductory Drawing, Harvard Carpenter Center for the Arts
Core Studio, Rhode Island School of Design
Core Studio, Washington University School of Architecture
 

Artistic Influences:

Albert Bierstadt, Ansel Adams, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, Alice Neel, Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thibaud, Barkley Hendricks, Catherine Murphy. 
Also the art critic, Harold Rosenberg, who taught me something about creativity...
and most of all Donald Judd, who I was most fortunate to have as my first studio instructor. He is known for his minimalist sculptures but he had a keen eye for form and a true understanding of an artist's intention.

Tags:

Landscapes, people, western, mountains, realism, figurative.