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JoAnn Chartier is an award winning painter, sculptor, printmaker and published writer. She’s been making art since the age of 12, when she won her first blue ribbon. She earned a degree with honors from California State University Sacramento and has won recognition for her work as a writer and painter, including double bronze awards at the California Discovery Show of 1994 and a bronze for art direction of a teaching video from the New York International Film and TV Festival. She has co-authored four books about women in the old west published by Globe Pequot Press.

I like good coffee.

I like a good book.

I like blue-highway road trips.

I love color. And taut canvas. And the rhythm and sweep of big brushes loaded with rich pigment stroking and dabbing and scrubbing in the bones and planes, the lights and the darks and the drips and spatters that make a painting.

I don’t paint pictures. I discover images. I interpret science and dreams. I translate odd geometry. I absorb fields and mountains, sea and sky, shadow and light and fling it from my brushes and my fingertips until a new creation appears.

I don’t paint portraits. I layer gesso on gorgeous paper and scrub transparent blacks all over it and then meditate on the mysterious appearance of a man’s profile, a tiger’s eye, a palm tree in a boat. I tiptoe into the dark and add a highlight, darken a shadow, delicately scratch and stipple until shapes emerge.

I don’t explain the results of the interaction of eye and mind, brush and paint. Everything from string theory to pond scum influences what comes from my hand.

What it means is up to you.

CONTEMPORARY ART

Represented by DragonFire Gallery at Cannon Beach, Oregon

Cannon Beach is famous for its artists and galleries, drawing thousands of art lovers, photographers and visitors at all seasons. Located west of Portland on the scenic Oregon coast, the artist colony has grown over the years to become a major destination. DragonFire is one of the largest and most diverse galleries on the Coast. It features an array of contemporary art and handmade glass, jewelry, wood and metal art. In 2007, DragonFire was chosen by Oregonian readers and the newspaper's travel editor as one of 3 galleries on the coast that should not be missed.

I am pleased to be included in the lineup of artists featured at DragonFire. Look for special events like the

Stormy Weather art festival each November and the Spring Unveiling on the first weekend of May, presenting art in action, live music, inspired food, and, as always, the unique atmosphere of Cannon Beach. For more information, go to www.DragonFireStudio.com

JOANN CHARTIER

New Work for Spring Unveiling May 3-5 2013