Joy Halsted, an Artist in many mediums including, acrylic, knitted plastic, oil pastels and mixed media, provokes reaction with the combination of social comment and sense of fun.

S t a t e m e n t

I've been a sponge for anything interesting that comes my way: childhood toys, paper dolls of movie stars, games and toy blocks, radio and TV programs, odd bits of refuse, plastic bags. I'm an inveterate dumpster diver. I've always felt the world was mine to imagine any way I wanted.

Living in Washington DC during the 1950s, '60s and '70s, I was exposed to new influences: pop art exploded on the scene. Popular culture, social and political commentary entered the language of art in a big way. The Kennedy and King assassinations, LBJ and Vietnam, Nixon and Watergate were all grist for the artist's mill.

Then, as now, my focus has been on the human condition-public and private, interior and exterior, at home or in the larger world. I'm a narrative artist, telling stories in whatever medium seems to fit best. Often it is more than one.

After I start with an approach, the work takes on its own direction, evolving into something unexpected. I like being surprised. I hope my audience does too.

B i o g r a p h y

Born in Philadelphia, Joy Halsted studied there with Hobson Pittman and at the Art Institute of Philadelphia (Moore College of Art and Design); at the Art Students' League in Woodstock, NY; at Bennington College with George Holt and Paul Feely; at the Art Institute of San Miguel Allende, Mexico, and with Jack Perlmutter of the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC.

She has worked in many media: painting in oils, acrylics, and watercolor; drawing; printing (woodblock, linocut, etching and lithography), stained glass, sculpture in wood, tin and steel. She is presently working with recyclable materials, knitting with plastic shopping bags, using discarded plastic display forms and other “refuse art.”

Media commentators have often noted the amused, critical eye she casts on her subject matter: “Artist Mixes Social Comment and Sense of Fun;” “She Combines Art with Laughs;” “Halsted Fascinated with Toys;” “Halsted Aims to Provoke Reactions” are typical newspaper comments on her portraits of the human condition. Television interviews in Boston and Washington, DC have focused on her spirited social commentary, particularly with her wooden sculptures that caricature figures ranging from mythological beings to cartoon characters to Supreme Court justices, with a few allusions to family members thrown in.

Halsted has exhibited her work in Boston, New York, Chicago, Washington, Philadelphia, her home town of Gloucester, MA, and elsewhere; her work is in the permanent collections of museums in Gloucester, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Duluth, MN, and in private and corporate collections. She has taught art in public and private schools in Washington, DC, and worked as a graphic designer.