About Joan

Artist Teacher Curator

Artist, teacher, and arts advocate, Joan worked for 12+ years at the J. Paul Getty Museum as Assistant Curator of Photographs before becoming a full-time art teacher in LA's inner-city for 20+ years where she built nationally recognized arts programs. Her own photography has won international contests including National Geographic's World in Focus. In 2007 she was awarded a national photography teacher of the year by the Santa Fe Center for Photography, competing with college professors across the country. She taught at Otis College of Art, the Getty, LACMA, and also served on the Board of Directors for the Society of Photographic Education’s (SPE) West Region, organizing one of their regional conferences. From 2016 to 2018 she directed the Studio Art Programs at Pasadena’s non-profit Armory Center for the Arts. Since her retirement, she has been studying figure and portrait drawing at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design.