Bio for Joan Maureen Collins
It was a day trip along the East Coast from Salem to Rockport, Massachusetts and a drugstore watercolor palette that began a new form of expression for Joan. The soft palette of watercolor provided a welcomed contrast to her rigorous career serving industry with a marketing and international business degree from The Ohio State University. Since that drive along the coast, Joan has combined her passion for travel and expression through art. She has painted ancient ruins along the Aegean, Black Sea and Western Mediterranean coasts, green canals of Venice, colorful sarongs reflecting waves in Hawaii, and the pastoral mohers of Ireland at dusk.
When not traveling, it is her vivid dreams that inspire. Joan's artwork is often inspired from within through her dreams and visions. These works typically represent the celebration of life in figurative and natural forms. Though watercolor is her primary medium, she also paints in acrylics to bring in sharp and intense hues. She has also completed course work in sculpture of which she has shown and sold one-of-a-kind works in stone and bronze.
She opens her studio, annually for the Hidden in the Hills Studio Tour in Cave Creek, Arizona and her art is shown in such galleries as Uncubed Art Space (UN3) and other venues through-out Arizona. Her studio is named Dubh Cnock Studio, which means Black Mountain in Gaelic, a reflection of the artist's family roots in Ireland. The studio is surrounded by 2 acres of Sonoran desert at the foot of Black Mountain, where inspiration for her art fuses with earth, water and sky.
