Joy, that’s me, grew up in Japan, moved to rural New Jersey, then to the Suburbs of New York City, to the Hudson River Valley for four years of a very liberal arts education. Then it was on to New York City for some more liberal and arts education and experience, to Cambridge Massachusetts, and finally further north to Boston and New Hampshire.  Whew!

 

I have been creating art since I was a child in Japan and studied fine arts at the Art Students League of New York, Bard College, Parsons School of Design and Cambridge Center for Continuing Education.  I have been a freelance illustrator for 18 years and a multimedia graphic designer for over 10 years.

 

My art style is influenced both by my rich Jewish - Japanese heritage and my environment, both rural and urban. My pen and ink illustrations and print making tend toward an Asian simplicity while my computer graphics are often client driven and have a depth and complexity not found in my other work. My murals and craft work are often whimsical, joyful and rich with color.

 

I am easy to work with and enjoy working with a team.  I am great at coming up with original design solutions but I am also known for my ability to accommodate my client’s vision.

 

My art career began in New York in the mid 1980’s creating layouts for a word processing firm and continued as an Illustrator for Woman’s World Magazine’s Beauty pages. Since then I have continued painting with pen and ink and watercolor, embracing new mediums of creativity and creating art for a variety of clients.

 

In the early 1990’s I published a series of Aquatint Sugar Lift prints in Boston, as well as starting a multimedia development company called Audio Visual Group, later Mediactive with my husband Rob Graham who went on to form LearningCraft, an online education company.

 

During our years as Mediactive, we created hundreds of products for publishers, educational companies, hospitals, museums other developers and a host of individuals.  These included print work, video, CD-ROMs, kiosks and web pages.  I headed the art department and was personally responsible for all the artwork that Mediactive created.

 

I have continued as a freelance graphic designer, designing for corporate  interactive banner advertisements as well as independent clients.  I have recently begun assisting small businesses in creating logos for their corporate identity, as well as painting murals and furniture for private individuals.