I have lived and worked in the Berkshires for forty years as an artist, expressive art therapist, and teacher. I began painting in High School with Wallace Bassford while managing the North Truro School of Art. I received a BFA from UMass and a M.Ed in Expressive Arts Therapy from Lesley College. I have worked with all ages in a variety of treatment settings as an art therapist and taught studio art at the High School and Community College levels. I’ve exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibits throughout New England. Retired now I am happily painting in my studio in the Norad Mill, North Adams, MA.
I am inspired by everything around me and by my on-going search to transcend the limits of time or what I refer to as nostalgia, past, present and future. Wherever I go I carry a sketchbook. My works are completed through the veil of these impressions, and my affection for where I am in these moments. I have long been drawing figures in life drawing groups. I then rework them into mythic stories. I have, since I was a child, been fascinated by mythology and by extension, story telling. There are places that become more than a location or a view, but become a part of who I am. These are the inspiration for my landscape works. There is a long tradition of still life painting. I don’t know how to slow life down so that it is “still” but I can paint in the moment and hold living objects such as flowers in that way. I am aware that they are impermanent and this is also a piece of the paintings. Regardless of my subject matter, I think about the painting I am creating not how to document reality. I transform what I see and experience into color, shape, pattern and line. I hope to elicit a reaction to my paintings because they create a mood, bring back a memory, remind one of the joy of color, and/or question what art can convey about the familiar. I paint under the signature Joffe, and work in oils as well as mixed media using acrylic paint, oil paint, water color, ink, pencil, pastel and whatever else may be handy.
